By Alex Benham Picture this: You’re lying in bed, fast asleep, when your phone rings.…

AM Quality Trends Report – August 2022
How NASA’s AM Quality Standards Can Benefit Your Journey!
This paper, titled How AM Quality Standards Can Benefit Our Journey to Mars! talks about NASA’s commitment to qualify additive manufacturing and discusses important information on topics like:
- Why well-defined process qualification standards remain a clear gap in an AM standards framework.
- How existing post-build processes can be expensive and time-consuming.
- Perspectives on standardization in the AM certification process: NASA-STD-6030.
- Ways that non-destructive evaluation and process monitoring capability can help optimize system parameters and output.
- Why detecting anomalies and potential errors in real-time produces better outcomes than attempting to “inspect quality into a product”.

Welcoming Partners to the Sigma Additive Quality Network
To paraphrase the oft-used statement, it takes a village to deliver an efficient and high-quality additive manufacturing solution. Sigma has industry-leading in-process quality assurance technology, that when combined with independent software vendors (ISVs) or AM printer manufacturers (OEMs), creates a powerful combination to improve machine, process, and part health. Learn more about the many benefits of teaming with Sigma here.

Industry Specialization
In the additive manufacturing world, each industry has its own set of customized nomenclature, processes and outcomes. This is especially true in industries that demand a high degree of quality and precision when producing metal or polymer parts. At Sigma, we recognize and support these differences and always strive to deliver our solutions in an industry-specific manner. Click below for more information about how we can help you.
ASTM ICAM Conference
It’s not too early to start making plans for the ASTM International Conference on Additive Manufacturing (ICAM). We are a Diamond Sponsor, so come see us at our booth. Our CTO, Darren Beckett, is a co-organizer of the track called Process Control and In-Situ Monitoring Techniques in AM. We will also be on the podium at three other sessions.
- Coaxial Monitoring and Closed-Loop Control in Directed Energy Deposition using a Photodiode Array
- Towards a Quality Continuum of Monitoring and Analytics that Enables AM Part Qualification
- Manufacturing: Real-Time Detection of Flaws in Laser Powder Bed Fusion by Combining Thermal Simulations with In-Situ Meltpool Sensor Data
Past Newsletter Issues
Every month, our team at Sigma Additive Solutions delivers a monthly newsletter (just like this one) that has 4-6 items of interest to the additive manufacturing community. We’ve now posted the past issues at our Resources Center. Have a look and see what you may have missed.
As always, we appreciate your readership and interest in Sigma. Whatever role you play in your organization and the industry, our Sigma Additive Solutions team intends to support you in every way possible. Contact us if we can help you in any way or to learn more about Sigma Additive Solutions.
Sincerely,
The Sigma Additive Solutions Team