ASTM International debuts strategic guide to Additive Manufacturing data
ASTM International’s Additive Manufacturing Center of Excellence (AM CoE), Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, USA, in collaboration with America Makes, the USA’s national accelerator for AM, have debuted a strategic guide said to identify gaps, challenges, solutions and action plans for Additive Manufacturing data.
The strategic guide comes after a December 2019 workshop on AM data management and schema, jointly organised by ASTM International and America Makes and held in Washington DC, USA. The workshop brought more than 100 experts from government, industry, academia together for a series of technical talks, panel discussions and brainstorming sessions related to data in AM.
Recent developments in digital data acquisition, analysis, modelling, machine learning and artificial intelligence, could quickly accelerate the AM development timeline. However, this growth has yet to be observed, stated the partners.
“A key and large gap in the development of an AM data ecosystem is how to easily and securely generate, store, analyse and share critical and vital data,” explained Mohsen Seifi, PhD, ASTM International’s Director of Global Additive Manufacturing Programs. “A sub-gap is the consistency of the data that is gathered across multiple groups.”
“This strategic guide attempts to address series of gaps and provide solutions and potential action plans to address the gaps,” added Mahdi Jamshidinia, PhD, ASTM International’s AM R&D Project Manager. “The guide provides a summary of discussions during the workshop and can be used by all industry stakeholders and AM experts who want to participate in the development of an AM data ecosystem and contribute to standardisation.”
Brandon Ribic, Technology Director of America Makes, stated, “The guide highlights the importance of data management and data principles which will benefit the broader AM supply chain, and will serve as a resource to strengthen collaboration and ease the challenges common to AM data sharing. We are grateful to all who worked on this effort and believe this guide compliments the efforts of the AMSC and America Makes’ technology maturation strategic objectives.”
Another outcome of the workshop was the creation of a new Subcommittee on Data (F42.08) within ASTM International’s Additive Manufacturing Technologies Committee (F42). The subcommittee will develop and perform value-stream mapping to identify the needs, processes, tools, opportunities, and dependencies required to obtain complete digital thread understanding.
“This new subcommittee will provide a home for AM data experts where key standards activities can be coordinated, prioritised, and developed,” commented to Alex Kitt, PhD, Product Manager at EWI and chair of the new subcommittee. One of the initial documents that the subcommittee is currently working on is titled the Standardisation of AM common data dictionary (CDD).
