Replies to post #45163 on Sigma Labs Inc (SASI)

[criticalnugz]

I think being an independent 3rd party QA is SGLB's biggest defense. Buying the company would negate a huge part of its service.

[GetRich1day]

Thanks criticalnugz. You beat me too it.
Hawks023, Here's my response.
My thoughts are that GE is interested in being an AM manufacturer with the purchase of Arcam and SLM. They are not interested in being a AM third party certifier. GE wants to build the AM machines and produce AM parts thus they cannot certify that their parts are built to design intent for thier customers. This would be a conflict of interest. Sigma Labs is jockeying to be that third party certifier in the AM space. Now Honeywell just might be interested. I base that on Donald Godfrey's March 2016 presentation. In the Summary slide he states that

• Working to be world leader in technology development in the area of NDE
• With regard to quality - Objective Evidence of Compliance to Design Intent is the ultimate goal

http://rube.asq.org/asd/2016/03/industry-government-cqsdi.pdf

Third party certification will be critical to bodies such as the FAA and FDA. Please see below from FAA's site.

The third party certification body under the procedures contained in Appendix 2, Third Party Certification Program and Procedures evaluates equipment. The manufacturer is issued a Certificate of Conformance by the third party certifier for each type of equipment that meets the applicable FAA standards.
a third party certification body must assure that the manufacturer provides and maintains a quality control system in accordance with FAA-STD-013, Quality Control Program Requirements, or suitable alternative, such as the ISO 9000 family of standards or Department of Defense quality standards.

Remember that:

In 2012, DARPA established the Open Manufacturing program, a project to develop an integrated computational materials engineering (ICME) framework aimed at rapid qualification. Rapid qualification requires the integration of several technologies: materials, process, design, models, monitoring and control, non-destructive evaluation (NDE), testing, among others. A probabilistic design approach is adopted in the rapid qualification process to enable the integration of these technologies into a single risk-based function to optimize the design process

Recall that:

The models must be framed in a probabilistic setting in order to ascertain the sensitivity of the predictions to the parameters of interest and to understand the expected variability as a result of the random nature of the inputs. At the same time, in situ process monitoring is being implemented in order to provide evidence in the form of In-Process Quality Assurance™ (IPQA®) that the process is under control for the purpose of certification. It is this suite of activities and the knowledge generated that makes the rapid qualification possible.

https://immijournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40192-016-0052-5
There are many companies utilizing the ICME process with GE, Ford, Alcoa to name a few; but anyway,
Honeywell and Sigma Labs have successfully completed DARPA Phase 2 and I'm looking forward to Phase 3 as Phase 3 is focused on commercialization per Darpa's transition plan found on Darpa's web site.

the Phase III transition plan may focus on identifying partners, such as defense suppliers (e.g., prime contractors), who can best integrate the enabling or component technology into an existing DoD system, or spiral it into a new system under development.
These partners may potentially have funding and/or other resources—such as testing and evaluation environments—to further mature the technology through testing, evaluating, or benchmarking, so that it can be integrated into a larger system and then fielded to support one or several applications.

Accordingly, activities identified in the transition plan for securing Phase III funding needs to focus on identifying advocates—potential collaborators and partners in both the S&T and acquisition communities—who have the mission and resources to further mature the technology, and who also have links into the operational communities to support transition activities.

http://www.darpa.mil/attachments/DARPATransitionGuideFinal2-26-16.pdf
The clock is ticking. SGLB is getting closer and I'm waiting for the lift-off IMHO. Good Luck Longs!