Uncle Sam has had it with sending American innovation overseas, and he’s erecting a blockade of 3D printers.
With his recently introduced Additive Manufacturing Forward program, President Joe Biden wants to make it possible for more small and medium-size enterprises, otherwise known as machine shops, to adopt the high-tech AM method. Some of the country’s most prominent OEMs have signed on to the plan, which also leverages existing federal programs.
The initiative comes as the country is in a manufacturing boom with more than $200 billion of investments in new manufacturing facilities and the creation of 473,000 new jobs in the sector since Biden took office, according to a White House fact sheet on AM Forward.
“Companies are investing in America again, bringing good-paying manufacturing jobs back home,” according to the fact sheet. “This is just the beginning of a broad revival of American industrial might.”
AM can be a major contributor to that “broad revival,” if forecasts from consulting firm A.T. Kearney are realized. In 2017, the company reported that 3D printing could create 3–5 million new skilled jobs and account for at least $600 billion in total economic value.
Revival or not, AM Forward is designed to help participants upgrade their capabilities and upskill their workforce, while giving OEMs the suppliers they need.
The initial OEM participants include GE Additive, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Siemens Energy. These companies have made commitments regarding purchasing, technical assistance, training the workers of their suppliers, and engaging in common standards development and supplier certification/qualification.
“It’s not enough only to develop the manufacturing process,” said President Neal Orringer of the Applied Science and Technology Research Organization of America (ASTROA), a think tank and research organization in Bethesda, Md., that’s managing the program. “It’s also critically important that we help qualify and accelerate the process by which suppliers can qualify a manufacturing production process.”
Participants will focus on producing low-volume, high-mix 3D-printed parts that would otherwise face bottlenecks due to the long lead times required for the molds needed to make them. Most of the promises in the OEMs’ public commitment letters are vague, with commitments to “work with” others, “if feasible.” Siemens Energy listed the most concrete goals, including engaging 10 to 20 U.S. suppliers and partners in research; training them on inspection and post-processing best practices; and providing a training and education portfolio to 100 representatives of vendors and partners through its existing network of innovation hubs.
AM Forward leverages existing federal programs for small- and medium-sized firms to provide access to capital through loans; deliver technical assistance through the Manufacturing Demonstration Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the Department of Defense’s Mentor Protégé Program and the National Institute for Standards and Technology’s Manufacturing Extension Partnership; support workforce development through curriculum development and apprenticeships; and foster standards development, particularly for metal 3D printing.
“What’s really exciting about this, in my view, is it’s really a commitment by these large corporations to invest in their suppliers to provide supply chain resilience,” Orringer said.
AM Forward needn’t be restricted to the initial five OEMs, their current suppliers, or even the aerospace and defense industry—from which most of the initial participants come—he said.
AM Forward also has a role for America Makes, the Manufacturing USA institute focused on AM, to help develop standards and education and workforce development curriculum for 3D printing. Coincidentally, when Orringer was director of manufacturing at the Department of Defense, he helped launch Manufacturing USA—and America Makes was the first institute.
“I think that’s a natural fit for America Makes,” said Andy Resnick, who is the institute’s communications and public affairs director. “That’s what we do a lot of already. We have an incredible catalog of assets at our disposal, especially on education and workforce development that we are eager to deploy and think we can deploy in this setting so that we’re not recreating the wheel. And the standardization is something we’re very active in already.”
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