CECIMO has established a liaison agreement with the ISO Technical Committee on Additive Manufacturing (AM), with the objective of contributing to the development of standards that support the uptake of the technology at an industrial level.

ISO/TC 261 „Additive Manufacturing“ is the ISO committee that is responsible for the development of standards in the area of AM. On 13 September 2018, the liaison between the committee and CECIMO was approved, allowing CECIMO to provide input on the formation of standards, which have a major impact on the way companies carry out their AM business. CECIMO plays an instrumental role in bringing together businesses and authorities to address market and policy conditions for additive technologies.

By joining ISO/TC 261, CECIMO will be able to ensure that developments in regulation and standardisation are aligned with the needs of businesses engaged in the AM sector. This appears all the more important, as high-level discussions between industry and European policy-makers have pointed to standardisation as a top priority for the growth of AM.

Consensus-based, market-driven standards are a better instrument than top-down regulations to reflect the actual needs and requirements of market players in a fast-evolving technology ecosystem like that of AM. Due to this, CECIMO consistently supports the adoption of international standards and contributes to a number of other initiatives. For instance, CECIMO has a partnership with ASTM Committee F42, and is a member of the European Commission’s Joint MSP/DEI Working Group to provide a comprehensive plan to foster standardisation in support of digitising European industry.

Recently, CECIMO also joined the advisory board of ASTM’s new Additive Manufacturing Centre of Excellence, which features top professionals from the US Food and Drug Administration, NASA, Airbus, the US National Institute for Standards and Technology, and many others. The Centre announced its first round of funding in support of research to accelerate the development of much-needed standards in AM.


Picture source: CECIMO