Additive manufacturing award deadlines are April 5

SOUTHFIELD, Mich., Jan. 18, 2024 — SME, the nonprofit committed to accelerating new manufacturing technology adoption and building North America's talent, today announced nominations are now open for four additive manufacturing awards and for its AM Pitchfest scheduled for RAPID + TCT 2024, North America’s largest and most influential additive manufacturing (AM) event, June 25-27, 2024 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The deadline for applying for the awards is April 5.

“Awards such as these not only celebrate individual or team technical accomplishments, but they also serve to inspire others in additive manufacturing to continuously improve their performance, often transforming their knowledge and gaining a new perspective on their profession,” said Stacey DelVecchio, chair of SME’s AM Technical Community Leadership Committee. “We honor these groundbreaking achievements in AM to boost the quality, productivity, and competitiveness of manufacturing, not only in the U.S. but also globally.”

The awards, with links for nomination, include the following:

AM Industry Achievement Award – Established in 2008, the AM Industry Achievement Award recognizes an individual or team for outstanding accomplishments that significantly impact the application of AM in any industry. It recognizes achievements implemented or deployed in a commercial/industrial environment versus research or investigative work. Their scope and scale of benefits realized and the potential future impact their work will have on the industry are key differentiators.

The Aubin AM Case Study Award – This award looks to recognize innovations in the application of AM technologies. The award recognizes outstanding use cases of AM adoption and implementation and provides inspiration to others in their journey of AM application.

The Digital Manufacturing Challenge is designed to inspire the next generation of engineers. It challenges them to re-think ways to design, create, and utilize infrastructure-level systems that deploy engineering design and manufacturing solutions to strengthen infrastructure in the response, mitigation, and/or prevention of such disruptive and devastating events and envision an optimistic view of healthy, robust, sustainable, smart, agile, peaceful communities. The Digital Manufacturing Challenge Award has three categories for 2023: high school, undergraduate, and graduate teams.

The AM Startup Technology Award – This award is designed to showcase young companies that have developed a new AM technology or application that solves an existing problem or utilizes a unique approach.

The AM Pitchfest showcases the latest in AM technology and innovation to a panel of industry leaders, media, and the AM community.  The AM Pitchfest competition is open to entrepreneurs, startups, and academic spinoffs bringing emerging technology, products, and applications to the market. Finalists will be selected to “pitch” present – each is allowed a five-minute presentation followed by one minute of Q&A by the judges.

All of the awards celebrate the outstanding accomplishments of individuals, teams, and companies that have had a significant impact on commercializing AM. They represent more than two decades of SME recognition of notable, innovative leadership in the additive sector.

About Additive Manufacturing

Since 1987, when the first paper on additive manufacturing was presented at SME’s North American Manufacturing Research Conference (NAMRC), the organization has been dedicated to serving the AM industry. As a pivotal force in shaping the trajectory of AM for over 35 years, SME also actively contributes to preparing the future workforce through its PRIME (Partnership Response In Manufacturing Education) program with specific AM curriculum and the annual SkillsUSA Additive Manufacturing Competition.

SME also recently hosted an AM Summit with its AM Technical Communities, strategic organizational partners, RAPID + TCT Event Advisors and industry partners, gathering nearly 100 attendees representing over 45 businesses, universities, trade groups and manufacturing institutes (read the AM Summit Event Recap Report here). Participants collaborated to identify challenges and opportunities for AM in the marketplace. They highlighted the importance of investing in education and awareness of AM technologies to build a stronger workforce, encouraging knowledge sharing and industry collaboration to strengthen AM’s capabilities, while also providing evidence of the value that AM brings to justify incorporating it into future manufacturing plans. The discussions initiated at the summit will be continued at RAPID + TCT 2024 in Los Angeles and beyond.