The Air Force is seeking a phased AM approach with current efforts underway to acquire new technologies that provide centralized applications, requiring a need to qualify parts/components, address AM challenges, build AM capability, and establish process discipline. This includes agile manufacturing agility to improve readiness and reduce cost through the establishment of AF Enterprise wide or global manufacturing networks, a cyber secure parts library, all to best support future operational Concepts of Operations (CONOPS). Explicitly, the Air Force requires the establishment of an AM capability in both metals and polymers to: 1. Establish selective AM Capability: Depots and Major Command (MAJCOM) back shops 2. Qualify Target parts: Tools, fixtures, prototypes, non-structural non-critical parts, structural non-aerospace parts 3. Standardize AM equipment, training, processes, and tools 4. Reverse engineering process & tools 5. Develop facility guidelines and post-processing Fabric8Labs offers the Air Force its Commercial-off-the-Shelf (COTS) Electrochemical Additive Manufacturing (ECAM) solution that provides superior part quality, non-thermal processes, utilizing liquid chemical feedstocks, that ultimately benefits the Air Force AM market for metal components.
