MMX 2024: Ecosystem, Education & Workforce, & Technology Program Updates

Ohio-based America Makes, the nation’s first Manufacturing Innovation Institute (MII) and the leading public-private partnership for additive manufacturing (AM) technology and education, has three strategic focus areas: Ecosystem Development, Education and Workforce Development (EWD), and Technology Development. At the organization’s recent 12th Annual Members Meeting and Exchange (MMX), the leadership team provided updates on these institute pillars to the over 350 gathered attendees.

Institute Ecosystem Strategic Plan

Ecosystem Director Kimberly Gibson shared the strategic plan for the Ecosystem, which is the institute’s newest pillar. As hardware, software, and materials continue to diversify, a more connected approach is needed to manage innovation and scale new technologies. Additionally, we need to make sure that these new innovations and technologies are economically viable.

“We’re at the center of today’s additive manufacturing ecosystem,” she said. “The AM landscape is evolving, and it will continue to do so. In order for us to address the challenge of what that looks like, we have to think about what the strategy would look like to get shared value.”

America Makes worked with a team from MMX Diamond Sponsor Deloitte to use a four-phase approach for determining the future state of the Ecosystem, and then lay out a path for achieving it. During a later panel on “Regionalization and the U.S. Industrial Base – Integrate Nationally, Catalyze Locally,” Mark LaViolette, Managing Director at Deloitte Consulting, further explained this type of “regionalization project.”

“First you identify a regional champion, like an organization or individual, and they convene the ecosystem together at a workshop,” he explained. “You work to find the huge problem that exists for your specific role, whether it’s educator or non-profit or industry, and then you document that. Then we collectively figure out the capability gap that has to be addressed.”

These gaps can be anything from an aging workforce to limited access to intellectual property (IP). Once the overall goal is set, it’s divided up into swimlanes for the problems to be addressed.

“These problems are often so complex that it takes a consortium to address it, not a single company,” LaViolette said.

L-R: Mark Cotteleer, PhD, Managing Director, Government & Public Service Supply Chain and Network Operations, Deloitte; Joe Mariani, Senior Manager, Deloitte; Mark LaViolette, Managing Director, Deloitte Consulting; Tim Shinbara, Chief Strategy Officer, BlueForge Alliance

Joe Mariani, Senior Manager at Deloitte Consulting, agreed, noting that the ecosystem approach is “like a pair of glasses,” helping you better see the things that were always impacting you.

“You don’t have to solve at the level of AM across the entire U.S. Once you start figuring out how all those folks work together, think about a minimum viable outcome that everyone can work towards together,” Mariani continued.

The first phase in determining the Ecosystem’s future state was discovery (finding gaps and opportunities), then definition (aligning on what’s needed to realize the future state and developing themes), prioritization (confirming the vision’s proposed strategic focus areas for achieving objectives), and finally validation (building and refining the finalized strategy).

“We conducted interviews to collect industry information from both members and non-members, discussing specifically digitization, additive adoption, and current challenges,” Gibson said, noting that 21 people from 19 different organizations were interviewed at RAPID 2024.

To broaden the scope of topics for the Ecosystem strategy, initiatives for five focus areas were refined into strategic swimlanes:

• Activate – enable members to identify sources of value and explore AM
• Accelerate – increase the use of tools and resources available to the community
• Integrate – connect key players and incentivize collaboration between them
• Mobilize – scale deployment in order to grow industrial use and responsiveness
• Advocate – create the best conditions and business environment for AM to be effectively adopted

“How does this all align to America Makes overall? The ecosystem pillar isn’t the third rail: it’s standing in the middle, Technology Development on one side and EWD on the other, and creating bridges across both,” she said.

The team put together a high-level roadmap with short term goals for each swimlane, like establishing a grant program and expanding a regional integration program, as well as mid-term goals (implementing curriculum enhancements and modifying Project Call Structures) and long-term goals, including promotion of a standardized data model, reducing procurement barriers, and identifying suitable procurement parts.

“This strategic pivot is not just about adapting to change but about leading it, ensuring the nation’s manufacturing sector remains competitive on the global stage,” Gibson told us.

All that’s left is to follow the yellow brick roadmap!

Technology Team Update

The Technology team expanded this year, now comprised of Technology Director Brandon Ribic, PhD; AM Research Director John Martin, and Technology Transition Director Ben DiMarco. Dr. Ribic explained that they facilitie strategic planning, research portfolio execution, and standards collaboration for America Makes, and said that what makes them different is how they identify available opportunities.

“There are member-identified needs, and we’re sharing them with the membership through CORE, which is controlled access but still easily accessible. This lets us share data,” he continued.

“Our working groups are meeting all the time to address manufacturing technology, operations, and standardization. These are designed to engage necessary skills and expertise to ensure success of the tasks.”

In addition to the working groups (WG), there are also advisory groups. The company logos shown in the slide below are just some of the organizations involved.

Dr. Ribic explained that a good way to share the institute’s “common language” with the rest of the world is through roadmaps. The Technology pillar maintains three:

• AM Technology Roadmap (Tech Maturation Needs)
• Department of Defense (DoD) AM Roadmaps (Mission and Application Alignment)
• Additive Manufacturing Standardization Collaborative (AMSC) Roadmap (Standardization)

We spent a little time “decoding” the Joint AM Working Group (JAMWG) Strategic Partnership with America Makes. Hundreds sit on this group, and America Makes is a member, serving as “the voice of industry” for the community.

“We engage with them, hear about their investments, and listen to your voice,” Dr. Ribic said. “America Makes has successfully engaged in 32 JAMWG priority areas since fiscal year 2020-2021. To keep going, we have to understand what’s already been done. So when we tell you to log in to CORE and check these things out, this is what we mean.”

Another important project has been working with the AMSC roadmap to impact the U.S. standards landscape. As Dr. Ribic put it, they “get smart people together, talk about different domains,” and try to determine what it is we most benefit from in a standard. America Makes is helping to accelerate this process, and has also “played a major role in about a dozen standards that have been published.”

“The time to get a published standard is going down from five years to 18 months,” Dr. Ribic shared. “It’s not done, but we’re finding a way to speed up through AMSC.”

Work began in 2016, and since 2017, six gaps have been closed, with 17 withdrawn. The latest version of the roadmap has 141 gaps, all of which require substantial R&D work to close.

Since last year’s MMX, the Technology team, and America Makes in general, has been very busy. In just the last year, $40 million of research funding has been contracted for projects that are “available to everyone in this room.” Just some of the many activities include:

• OSD portfolio reviews/engagements
• Proliferation of AM material datasets
• Operational qualification
• NASA AM TPS workshop
• IBAS engagement
• Environmental sustainability efforts – Phase I and II
• AM workshop – JAMWG engagement
• Multiple open Project Calls, including in-process sensor calibration, inspection using in-situ monitoring, and “should vs. could” training

Work also continues on the Powder Alloy Development for Additive Manufacturing (PADAM) project, to help enable affordable manufacturing of AM feedstocks, as well as develop novel feedstock materials, such as C-103 and ATI-1700 powder alloys. Approximately $12 million has been funded for this effort to date.

There’s also been increased focus on Casting and Forging, with eight projects and $11.7 million awarded so far. A strategy for further engagement was developed and delivered to the DoD last fall, which resulted in a series of interviews, workshops, and development of the IMPACT program.

“That community does not know this community,” Dr. Ribic said. “We went to them with workshops, and boy, did they respond!”

He also shared that the AM for Space Propulsion report has been completed, and will be shared soon to gather member feedback. Lastly, he laid out the Technology team’s eight-year, $1.8 billion strategic research and development (R&D) investment plan, made up of 88 tasks and subtasks that detail possible approaches, impacts, and outcomes for each. You can see the strategy in more detail below:

The Technology team’s next steps start with roadmapping and workshops for processes, monitoring, and AM for composites. They will be reaching out to membership, and the participants of the AM for Space Propulsion workshop held in January of last year, for feedback.

America Makes EWD Update

Josh Cramer, the Education and Workforce Development Director, provided an update on the EWD strategy, noting that “we’re here to create a strong pipeline for AM talent” through partnership and collaboration. It’s about engaging learners of all ages, or from “K through Grey,” a turn of phrase I enjoy. 3/4 of manufacturers are still struggling to find talent, and there’s a big skills gap with which to contend. But if we’re training to transition as adults, instead of waiting for new talent to graduate, that can help reduce the gap. For example, there’s plenty of untapped potential in the nearly one million active reservists and transitioning veterans who have a transferable skillset.

The EWD portfolio has 21 active projects, with $29.3 million total value, and over 60 members are working in the portfolio today. America Makes has averaged nearly 8,500 participants in programming annually since 2018, reaching learners in 49 states and 23 regions across the U.S. (otherwise known as AMNation). The institute is partnering with over 100 K-12 and post-secondary institutions, and more than a dozen national and local non-profits/community organizations, to scale their programs. During FY23 alone, over 2,000 in the DoD, as well as veterans, were trained by and engaged with the institute.

“The impact of this collective group is making a difference and moving the needle,” Cramer said.

The AM workforce currently needs 50,000 workers. The most in-demand skillsets include manufacturing process knowledge, problem solving and creativity, applications, and several others that are specific to additive manufacturing: DfAM, qualification certification, material specialization, and more.

“Learners in the classroom are renewable resources, they continue to come back,” Cramer said. “A large focus of America Makes is widening the funnel, and bringing more people to the party.”

During an earlier EWD panel, which Cramer moderated, on “Successful Strategies in Aligning Education and Workforce Development at the Local, State, and National Levels,” similar thoughts were shared.

“To have a trained skilled workforce in today’s digital space, we don’t necessarily need the same job requirements and same kinds of HR requirements that we used to,” said America Makes Ambassador Sarah Boisvert, FabLab Hub and Founder of the New Collar Network. “We need to get back to what we used to do in vocational work. We do a disservice in workforce by not aligning skills that we need with our job requirements.”

L-R: Josh Cramer, EWD Director, America Makes; Joy Gockel, Associate Professor, Colorado School of Mines; Brett Conner, PhD, OSD, JAMWG EWD Stakeholder Council; Sarah Boisvert, FabLab Hub

So, just who in the market is the institute training and engaging in EWD? 39% is K-12 students, 29% is incumbent, warfighters make up 17%, educators are 8%, and post-secondary education is 7%. In terms of level of learning, skills is 32%, while awareness is 47%, “because we want to funnel more people to the deep drive training that you may offer as a member.” The other categories of concepts, application, and creation will help learners begin to build high levels of mastery of skills, abilities, and knowledge.

The institute’s EWD work continues to engage more learners by adding digital assets, such as the career exploration tool AMJobs, which soft launched earlier this ear, and the OSD ManTech-funded AMTrain, the AMNation Pipeline Portal, and the Edge Factor platform, which highlights innovations in AM through fun and interesting videos. Other opportunities include Additive Edge, which is an entrepreneurial outreach program for high school students, workplace competencies training, apprenticeship programs, and much more.

There are many opportunities for members to help in this important work, whether it’s volunteering and mentoring, joining an Advisory Group or Working Group, or helping with local deployment.

“My ask, as always—nearly 70 members are engaged in our portfolio, so work with us!” Cramer concluded.

Stay tuned for more from MMX 2024!

Images: Sarah Saunders for 3DPrint.com.