Leading Minds and AM I Navigator Form Industry Alliance to Accelerate 3D Printing Adoption

Two of the additive manufacturing industry's most influential consortia have announced a strategic partnership to form the Additive Manufacturing Alliance, combining their efforts to accelerate the industrial adoption of 3D printing technology.

Bridging the Gap Between Potential and Reality

The new alliance brings together Leading Minds and AM I Navigator — two initiatives that have approached the adoption challenge from different angles. Leading Minds, established at Formnext 2024, focuses on building understanding of AM's potential and helping companies overcome initial adoption barriers. Meanwhile, AM I Navigator provides information on real-world use cases and transformation insights.

"Our shared goal is to make additive manufacturing more accessible, less complex, and more integrated into everyday industrial production," said Brigitte de Vet-Veithen, CEO of Materialise, on behalf of the Additive Manufacturing Alliance. "Together, we can help more companies across a wider variety of industries benefit from the flexibility, efficiency, and innovation that AM enables."

Who's Involved

Leading Minds includes Ansys, EOS, HP, Materialise, Nikon SLM, Renishaw, Stratasys, and ATLIX (formerly Trumpf Additive Manufacturing). Their first initiative created a common language framework to address the fragmentation of AM terminology.

AM I Navigator was launched by Siemens, DyeMansion, HP, BASF Forward AM, and EOS in 2023. Since then, Materialise, AMTPro, AZO, Capgemini, and BCG have joined, with Wohlers Associates (powered by ASTM International) coming on board just last month.

What This Means for Industry

The alliance will focus on three key areas:

• Knowledge exchange — Sharing best practices and insights across the AM ecosystem
• Joint industry communication — Unified messaging to help educate potential adopters
• Supporting industrialisation — Guiding companies through their AM transformation journey

Companies worldwide can now access the AM I Navigator website to independently assess their additive manufacturing maturity and explore transformational insights derived from proven industrial applications — free of charge.

This collaboration represents a significant step toward unifying the fragmented AM industry and presenting a coherent message to potential enterprise adopters.