The Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME), a nonprofit dedicated to advancing new manufacturing technology adoption and fostering talent in North America, has announced that nominations are open for four additive manufacturing (AM) awards. The announcement took place in conjunction with the launch of the AM Pitchfest, an event scheduled for RAPID + TCT 2024, slated for June 25-27 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The deadline for award nominations is April 5.
Stacey DelVecchio, chair of SME’s AM Technical Community Leadership Committee, highlighted that these recognitions not only celebrate the individual or team technical achievements but also serve as a source of inspiration for professionals in the additive manufacturing field. “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,” she said in a press release.
The awards recognize outstanding accomplishments and innovations in the application of AM technologies:
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 Challengee. 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.