Additive Manufacturing (AM) is a fast-growing area of industry, particularly in series production, where high hopes are placed in the innovative technology. “As industrialisation advances in additive manufacturing, the need for specialist expertise is becoming increasingly urgent”, warns Gregor Reischle, Head of Additive Manufacturing at TÜV SÜD. “In addition, qualifications in this field are often still based on individual solutions, although an integrated approach is the only way to ensure a company’s operations are successful along the entire value chain.”
TÜV SÜD provides specialist training for the specific industrial AM environment, in which compliance with AM-specific DIN/ISO/ASTM standards is required. Given the current COVID-19 pandemic, TÜV SÜD’s training courses and seminars are being held online at present.
A total of eight subjects are addressed, including Fundamentals, Health and Safety, Specifications, and Quality and Production Management as well as Risk Assessment, Process and Design Validation, and Industry Standards. The fee-based training courses make clear distinctions between the new technologies and their preceding manufacturing methods, and are aimed at implementing high quality standards in a targeted manner.
To serve as the basis of reproducible product characteristics in small-batch-series production Procurement of AM parts is an area often fraught with uncertainty over which requirements must be fulfilled by suppliers. This uncertainty also extends to health and safety in AM, where examples of how to conduct hazard assessment processes are as yet few and far between. Safety in handling testing and measurement equipment and moving machine parts is a further issue. Using examples from occupational medicine as a basis, the courses teach risk management as a systematic management process for the analysis, assessment and monitoring of risks. In addition, participants learn how to perform successful AM-specific process validation in quality control. Further aspects covered in the training include design rules for additive manufacturing and standardisation; the latter is a field in which good progress is already being made.
Virtual training for product designers, quality managers, production managers:
There is a shortage of specialists in this new field of technology. In a move to replace individual solutions with integrated qualifications, the experts at TÜV SÜD recommend a total of eight seminars on Additive Manufacturing subjects (all in English):
1. Fundamentals
2. Quality and Production Management
3. Specification of Parts for Purchase
4. Health and Safety
5. Risk Assessment and Management
6. Process Validation
7. Design Validation
8. Industry Standards
www.tuvsud.com/en-sg/services/training/additive-manufacturing-virtual-training
An on-demand webinar entitled “Quality Assurance in Additive Manufacturing” is also available at this link (only available in German): https://www.tuvsud.com/... maschinen-geraete-ausruestung/additive-fertigung/webinar-din-spec-17071-on-demand