Nikon Superior Manufacturing Inc., the California-based, end-to-end metallic additive manufacturing (AM) firm, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with requirements group ASTM Worldwide to work collectively on a number of efforts in assist of the U.S. protection industrial base (DIB). Of their new partnership, Nikon AM and ASTM might be particularly centered on functions engineering and workforce improvement.
Nikon AM and ASTM will leverage the Nikon AM Expertise Heart, based mostly within the aerospace and house trade hub of Lengthy Seashore, California, to host collectively developed training and certification applications to speed up the expansion of the powder mattress fusion (PBF) workforce. In response to Nikon AM, the workforce improvement program will middle primarily in the marketplace for U.S. Navy parts.
The partnership may even embrace collaborations to focus on authorities funding for manufacturing R&D initiatives, in addition to Nikon AM participation in ASTM-hosted trade invents just like the ASTM Worldwide Convention on Superior Manufacturing (ICAM). Again in Might, Nikon AM introduced that the corporate was partnering with various organizations, together with ASTM, in an America Makes venture to develop a dataset for aluminum alloy functions.
Picture courtesy of Nikon SLM Options
In a press launch about Nikon AM’s partnership with ASTM Worldwide to strengthen manufacturing provide chains for the U.S. DIB, CEO of Nikon AM, Hamid Zarringhalam, stated, “It has change into more and more clear that superior manufacturing is crucial to nationwide competitiveness, and over the previous couple of years, Nikon AM has been executing a strategic plan centered on onshoring these very important capabilities. With the intention to develop, construct, and function the following technology of producing gear and options, we additionally have to encourage, educate and practice the next-generation workforce about AM know-how. Mixed, Nikon AM and ASTM carry almost 235 years of legacy in high quality, precision and integrity — names that folks already know and belief.”
The President of ASTM Worldwide, Andrew G. Kireta, Jr., stated, “For greater than a century, ASTM has helped industries transfer from chance to manufacturing by reworking markets, enabling requirements, and helping in technological developments. This collaboration with Nikon AM brings collectively two establishments with unmatched legacy and international recognition. Collectively, we’re reinforcing the connection between workforce improvement, resilient provide chains, and nationwide safety — all whereas serving to speed up the adoption of superior manufacturing at an industrial scale.”
Picture courtesy of Nikon AM
That is the second partnership introduced within the span of just some months involving workforce improvement in metallic AM for U.S. Navy functions that includes ASTM and a 3D printer OEM. The primary was an announcement between EOS and Naval Sea Methods Command (NAVSEA) to coach maritime industrial base employees in ASTM-certified processes. The Trump administration has continued its predecessor’s emphasis on rebuilding U.S. shipbuilding capability, a objective that may solely be achieved with generational investments in making a labor pool suited to the duty.
Even then, it will likely be a monumentally difficult endeavor, and it actually gained’t be one which the U.S. can obtain by itself. If the objective is to by some means “catch up” to China on this entrance, it’s value holding in thoughts that China’s shipbuilding capability at present outpaces the U.S.’s by 230 occasions. That makes the acceleration of maritime-centered superior manufacturing provide chains all of the extra necessary, since these provide chains will in the end should be digitally built-in with the shipbuilding industries of allied nations.
It is usually value holding in thoughts that this isn’t simply in regards to the navy: the applications that organizations like Nikon AM and ASTM devise for the U.S. Navy need to ultimately translate over to the industrial maritime trade, too. Alongside these traces, it’s vital that the Nikon AM Expertise Heart is in Lengthy Seashore, one of many U.S.’s busiest ports.
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