America Makes & ANSI Additive Manufacturing Standardization Collaboration Publishes Completed AM Standardization Roadmap

A little over a year ago, Ohio-based America Makes teamed up with private nonprofit organization American National Standards Institute (ANSI) to form an additive manufacturing regulatory institute, called the America Makes & ANSI Additive Manufacturing Standardization Collaboration (AMSC). Nearly 90 people showed up to the first meeting, either remotely or in person, and four primary working groups were set up, in the areas of qualification and certification, design, process and materials, and maintenance. The groups met on a regular basis over the past year, both in person and online, and nearly three months ago, the AMSC released the preliminary final draft of its Standardization Roadmap for Additive Manufacturing (Version 1.0) for public review and comment, with the goal to publish the final document in February of 2017.

The goal was met – America Makes and ANSI announced yesterday that the completed Standardization Roadmap for Additive Manufacturing (Version 1.0) has been published and is available for download, representing a year’s worth of coordination, hard work, and development of industry-wide additive manufacturing standards and specifications by the AMSC group. Over 260 individuals, from more than 150 public and private sector organizations, including the medical, aerospace, and defense industries, were active supporters of developing the document to its fullest extent. Multiple federal agencies, including the Department of Defense (DoD), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and several standards development organizations (SDOs) were “instrumental in the formation of this collaborative.”

Ed Morris, Vice President and Director of America Makes, said, “The publication of the AMSC roadmap represents a significant milestone for the additive manufacturing community, one that will help to advance the growth of the industry. We thank all of the participating organizations and volunteers for their commitment of time and energy throughout this process.”

The two organizations that formed the AMSC certainly were the right choices for the task: America Makes is the national accelerator for 3D printing and additive manufacturing. It is the first of 14 Manufacturing USA national manufacturing innovation institutes, and is driven by the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining (NCDMM), which enhances the affordability, maintainability, quality, and rapid deployment of existing and yet-to-be-developed defense systems through optimized manufacturing solutions. ANSI is the official US representative to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

The standardization roadmap is not a totally end-all, be-all comprehensive document, but rather offers a large snapshot of the current AM standards landscape. 89 ‘gaps’ were identified, with 19 of those labeled high priority, where a particular industry need had no published specification or standard. In 58 of the 89 gaps, further R&D needs are specified. The roadmap document lists out the standards that are currently under development, or relevant existing standards, that relate back to the discussed issues, also includes recommendations for high-priority areas that seem to need additional standardization assistance.

“We now need the industry and the standards developing organizations involved in this space to come together, adopt the recommendations set forth in the roadmap, and work to achieve a coherent and coordinated suite of standards and specifications for additive manufacturing,” said AMSC Chair Jim Williams, President of All Points Additive. “America Makes and ANSI plan to continue to further this dialogue.”

Topical areas include standards for maintenance, qualification and certification, nondestructive evaluation, design, and process and materials; the material area is subdivided into areas of process control, precursor materials, post-processing, and finished material properties.

Joe Bhatia, President and CEO of ANSI, said, “ANSI appreciates this opportunity to partner with America Makes and to lend our expertise as coordinator of the U.S. private-sector system of voluntary standardization. Standards and conformity assessment are needed to create trust in innovative technologies and foster their widespread acceptance.”

AMSC Standards Landscape

The AMSC does not write the standards itself, but instead was launched in order to coordinate and maintain a harmonized, consistent, and non-contradictory set of standards, as multiple SDOs were already engaged in setting standards for many specific aspects of additive manufacturing. The Standardization Roadmap for Additive Manufacturing (Version 1.0) is supplemented by a list of standards, called the AMSC Standards Landscape, that are either peripherally or directly related to the issues laid out in the AMSC standardization roadmap. Both of these documents are now available on the AMSC website. Discuss in the AMSC forum at 3DPB.com.