U.S. Department of Defense Office of Economic Adjustment Funds Mountain West Advanced Manufacturers Network

Posted on | May 10, 2017 | No Comments

Test case integrates R&D, OEMs, contractors and subs to efficiently employ AM processes, expand markets and increase resiliency

Golden, CO –ADAPT, the Alliance for the Development of Additive Processing Technologies, a research consortium focused on developing technologies to accelerate the certification and qualification of 3D printed metal parts, in cooperation with the University of Utah, has received funding from the U.S. Department of Defense for the first phase of the Mountain West Advanced Manufacturer’s Network (MWAMN). From the approximately $2.7 million in funding, roughly $1.5 million will go to Colorado School of Mines and ADAPT.

“This program creates a new manufacturing platform to advance economic and workforce resilience in response to changes in defense spending,” said ADAPT Technical Director Aaron Stebner. “Enabling manufacturers to efficiently deploy additive manufacturing processes helps diversify their product offerings, expand into non-defense markets, and provide resilient employment and value to their communities and the economy independent of defense spending.”

The MWAMN leverages ADAPT’s existing data infrastructure built with funding from a State of Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade Advanced Industries Accelerator grant and funds from founding member companies. This data infrastructure will help inform product and material change-overs; create new innovations and diversification; accelerate product development; and reduce reliance on the defense industry while improving the ability respond to new Department of Defense requirements.

Other network members include Citrine Informatics; Carnegie Mellon’s NextManufacturing Center; and the NIST Manufacturing Extension Partnership organizations from Colorado and Utah, Manufacturer’s Edge and the MEP Center at The University of Utah.

“Additive manufacturing holds the promise of enabling manufacturers to quickly adapt to changing market needs compared to traditional manufacturing methods,” noted Heidi Hostetter, ADAPT industry board chair. “Today, building new parts or switching materials with this technology takes too long. MWAMN is focused on radically shortening that time, lowering costs, and reducing the negative economic impact on companies and communities when defense programs and spending changes.”

Together, members will network past, present, and future defense-supported metals manufacturers directly with advanced manufacturing research and development centers via a centralized, artificially intelligent database. This platform will enable defense manufacturing contractors to efficiently use AM processes to shorten product development cycles, expand product mix, enter new non-defense markets, increasing economic diversification of their businesses along with economic and workforce resilience.

About ADAPT

The Alliance for the Development of Additive Processing Technologies (ADAPT) is a research and development organization dedicated to the creation of next-generation data informatics and advanced characterization technologies for additive manufacturing technologies. ADAPT uses these tools to help industry and government qualify, standardize, assess, and optimize advanced manufacturing processes and parts. Several levels of membership to the ADAPT consortium are available. Founding industry members include Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Faustson Tool, Lockheed Martin, Citrine Informatics. Grant funding from the Colorado Office of Economic Development & International Trade (OEDIT) was provided to Manufacturer’s Edge and The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership. For more information, find ADAPT on the web, LinkedIn,Facebook, or Twitter.

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