RECAP – 2020 AM Workshop

Additive Manufacturing (AM) is a game-changing technology for the DOD which is why more than  180 government, industry, and academia AM experts registered for the 2020 AM Workshop hosted by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, NCMS, Lockheed Martin, and America Makes.  

This AM workshop was a followup to the Business Model Workshop held in 2019. The purpose was to address important foundational aspects of AM necessary for DOD’s wide adoption of the game-changing capability. Attendees were divided into teams consisting of Program Managers, Legal, Engineering, Logistics, Enterprise IT, Cybersecurity, Training, Administration, and Contracts.  

This year’s event was held via a virtual forum, using technology that facilitated digital participation in plenary sessions as well as smaller breakout groups.  

Topics and subtopics included: 

  • Addressing AM Cyber Challenges, facilitated by Al Lowas, and Dana Ellis 
  • Standards and Data Dictionary and Common AM Database Experiment, facilitated by Jennifer Wolk, Mark Benedict, and Alex Kitt 
  • Workforce Development for AM, facilitated by Michael Britt-Crane, Josh Kramer, and Karla O’Connor 
  • AM Metrics—Measures of Effectiveness and Measures of Performance, facilitated by Jim Disch, Dr. Bernard Goodley, Ernesto Ureta, Dr. Stephen Kuhn-Hendricks, Tim Vorakoumane, and Bill Peterson 
  • AM Part Risk Categorization and Impact on Part Criticality, facilitated by Edilia Correa, Andy Meighan, Tony Delgado, Eric Kirchner, and Ian Wing  
  • AM TDP for Procurement in Sustainment, facilitated by Edilia Correa, Andy Meighan, Tony Delgado, Eric Kirchner, and Ian Wing 
  • Framing the DOD-Level AM Guidebook, facilitated by Greg Kilchenstein and Kelly Visconti 
  • Acquisition and Contracting, facilitated by Ray Langlais and Mike Acosta 
  • Research & Engineering/Specs & Standards, facilitated by Greg Kilchenstein and Kelly Visconti 
  • Collaboration, Communication & Policy Implementation, facilitated by Debbie Lilu and Chris Fick.  

The keynote addresses were by Mr. Steven Morani, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Materiel Readiness and Mr. Robert Gold, Director of the Engineering Enterprise within the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Systems Engineering. Both speakers reiterated the importance of AM and the ways this innovative technology is impacting the design and engineering of weapons systems and even how the DOD is addressing the COVID-19 pandemic 

“The collaboration, expertise, and contribution from all who participated in this virtual workshop was extremely helpful in advancing the use of AM in the DOD maintenance and sustainment community,” says Debbie Lilu, Vice President, Maintenance and Sustainment Business Development for NCMS