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Additive Manufacturing Essentials

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Additive Manufacturing EssentialsSummary
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Qualification in additive manufacturing (AM) ensures that machines, facilities, personnel, and feedstock meet stringent requirements for consistent, reliable production. It aligns closely with certification but focuses on production readiness. Qualification involves several levels:

  1. Qualification: Verifies that an organization has comprehensive quality systems, approved AM processes, and related equipment. It encompasses training, materials control, and post-processing.
  2. Machine Qualification: Includes factory acceptance testing (FAT), installation qualification (IQ), and operational qualification (OQ). FAT tests machine functionality before delivery. IQ confirms proper installation, while OQ ensures consistent part production within specified limits.
  3. Part Qualification: Demonstrates that a machine-feedstock-process combination meets engineering and production specifications. It involves build file analysis, acceptance testing, and often destructive testing of first articles.
  4. Process Qualification (PQ): Common in medical and high-volume industries, PQ qualifies part families by testing process extremes, reducing individual part qualification needs.
  5. Personnel Qualification: Ensures operators are trained and tested for competence, with defined roles.
  6. Future advancements aim to streamline qualification through automation, better process control, and integrated statistical process control (SPC). Improvements in ICME, in-situ NDT, and predictive modeling will reduce destructive testing, allowing faster, more efficient qualification and production acceptance. Certification will evolve to enable part-family and feature-based design values, enhancing flexibility while maintaining safety and reliability.

Future advancements aim to streamline qualification through automation, better process control, and integrated statistical process control (SPC). Improvements in ICME, in-situ NDT, and predictive modeling will reduce destructive testing, allowing faster, more efficient qualification and production acceptance. Certification will evolve to enable part-family and feature-based design values, enhancing flexibility while maintaining safety and reliability.

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