Sigma Labs Inc (SASI)

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“Process qualification is very important as well,” Meyer added. “If we have to perform a specific qualification on every part, that’s punishing us on lead time. We could have a much broader scope of applications with a solid process qualification.”

Regarding part optimization, Meyer emphasized the need for more robust design for manufacturing tools to deal with the complex designs characteristic of additive manufacturing. “How will we surface finish this part with inaccessible surfaces?” he asked, rhetorically. “How will we address support removal on this part?”

“Today,” Meyer explained, “there’s no one surface finishing process that can address all the different geometries that we face; we have some that are excellent for cleaning out channels, but not very good for external surface finishing, and vice versa.”

Finally, in order to achieve more integrated architectures, additive manufacturing needs to see advancements in intermediate processing. “You generate problems for yourself in terms of areas that are impossible to access for your post-processing steps,” said Meyer. “And so, you may need to consider a process in which your part is produced in loops, including post-processing steps. That brings up additional challenges, but unless we start looking at them, we’re never going to get there.”
https://www.engineering.com/AdvancedManufacturing/ArticleID/15886/The-Airbus-Roadmap-to-Additive-Manufacturing.aspx