America Makes and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) announced the publication of the Standardization Roadmap for Additive Manufacturing, Version 3.0, developed by the America Makes and ANSI Additive Manufacturing Standardization Collaborative (AMSC).

The roadmap describes the current and desired future standardization landscape for additive manufacturing (AM), and focuses on industrial market sectors using AM technologies. A total of 141 standardization gaps (including 60 new gaps) are identified with corresponding recommendations across the AM lifecycle areas of:

• design;
• precursor materials;
• process control;
• post-processing;
• finished material properties;
• qualification and certification;
• nondestructive evaluation;
• maintenance and repair; and
• data.

The hope is that the roadmap will be broadly adopted by the user community to facilitate a more coordinated approach to the future development of AM standards.

The AMSC is a cross-sector coordinating body that works to accelerate the development of industry-wide AM standards and specifications consistent with stakeholder needs to facilitate AM industry growth. The AMSC was launched in 2016 because several standards developing organizations (SDOs) were engaged in writing standards for various aspects of AM, prompting the need for coordination to maintain a consistent, harmonized, and non-contradictory set of standards. The AMSC itself does not develop standards or specifications.

Approximately 300 individuals from 150 public- and private-sector organizations supported the roadmap’s development, including representatives of US federal government agencies and national laboratories, SDOs, industry, academia, and others. The document represents the culmination of the AMSC’s work since September 2022 to identify key safety, performance, and quality issues for AM technologies, relevant published standards and those in development, as well as to assess gaps. A “gap” means that a standard or specification does not exist addressing the issue in question.

The roadmap provides prioritized timeframes for when standards work should occur. Of the 141 gaps, 54 gaps/recommendations are identified as high priority, 64 as medium priority, and 23 as low priority. In 91 cases, additional pre-standardization research and development (R&D) is needed. The roadmap also identifies SDOs or others that may be able to develop the standards or perform the R&D. Looking ahead, the AMSC will continue to track progress by the SDOs to address the roadmap’s gaps and recommendations.

The impetus to develop an update to the roadmap—last published in June 2018—began following a 2022 survey on the use of the roadmap. The AMSC advisory group—comprising industry, government, and SDO representatives—concluded it was time to update the document to maintain its relevancy and alignment with current practices and stakeholder needs.

America Makes is the nation’s leading public-private partnership for additive manufacturing technology and education. America Makes members from industry, academia, government, workforce and economic development organizations work together to accelerate the adoption of AM and the nation’s global manufacturing competitiveness. Founded in 2012 as the Department of Defense’s manufacturing innovation institute for AM and first of the Manufacturing USA network, America Makes is based in Youngstown, Ohio, and managed by the not-for-profit National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining (NCDMM).

The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) is a private non-profit organization the mission of which is to promote and facilitate voluntary consensus standards and conformity assessment systems, and safeguard their integrity. Its membership comprises businesses, professional societies and trade associations, standards developers, government agencies, and consumer and labor organizations.