Phase3D Pairs With Phillips Federal to Scale Defence AM Inspection

Additive manufacturing gives defence organizations a way to produce hard-to-source parts closer to where they need them. But the technology only lives up to that promise if the parts coming off the machine actually meet spec. In-situ inspection solves that: you catch defects while a build is running, not days later when post-process scanning reveals the damage.

Phase3D's Fringe Inspection platform does exactly that. The system uses structured-light scanning to produce calibrated height maps layer by layer throughout metal AM builds. Defects surface in the data as they develop, not after the part has consumed hours of machine time and material. The company has been refining this approach across metal powder bed fusion with NASA, the U.S. Navy, and the Air Force. Now it is scaling defence distribution through a new exclusive channel partnership with Phillips Federal.

What the partnership covers

Phillips Federal will serve as Phase3D's exclusive North American defence channel partner. That puts Phase3D inspection systems in front of defence organizations through a partner that already manages equipment sales, contracting, project management, training, and lifecycle support for federal manufacturing programs. Phillips has operated in that space for more than 60 years.

The immediate reach includes the U.S. Navy's Additive Manufacturing Center of Excellence in Danville, Virginia, and the Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing. Phase3D systems are already deployed at those sites. The new arrangement extends that access across more depots, bases, laboratories, and manufacturing programs without Phase3D having to build out its own defence sales organization at the same pace.

Our defence customers are looking for practical ways to increase manufacturing capacity and get critical parts into production faster. Real-time inspection gives them greater visibility into the manufacturing process and the ability to catch defects before they consume additional machine time and material.

Tim McClanahan, President, Phillips Federal

Why in-situ inspection matters now

Defence additive manufacturing is moving from experimental programs toward production qualification. That transition changes the failure cost. A failed build at one kilogram of titanium powder is an expensive afternoon. A failed build on a part for a propulsion system scheduled for field testing is a program-level delay.

In-situ inspection changes the economics. Catching a problem three hours into a ten-hour build keeps the remaining seven hours productive. Without it, the part goes through post-process inspection, fails, and the machine sits idle until the next scheduled job. At production scale, that idle time adds up quickly.

Phase3D's Fringe Inspection produces quantitative, repeatable height data throughout the build. That data supports qualification workflows that defence customers increasingly require, not just real-time defect alerts. The same structured-light core works across materials, and Phase3D has been adapting it to ceramic matrix composites under a recent Air Force contract.

The CMC angle

Ceramic matrix composites are central to next-generation hypersonic propulsion and thermal-protection systems. CMC fabrication introduces defect risks at nearly every stage: tape layup, ply stacking, autoclave consolidation, pyrolysis, melt infiltration, and final machining. Defects are not a single-event problem.

Phase3D's Air Force-funded Phase I effort is building material-specific calibration routines and anomaly-classification models so Fringe Inspection can flag surface deformation and defect signatures during CMC production. That work is separate from the Phillips Federal partnership, but both threads point in the same direction: Phase3D is trying to make its inspection platform material-agnostic and production-ready across the full range of advanced manufacturing inputs the defence industrial base actually uses.

What comes next

Phase3D and Phillips Federal will both be at J-DAMMIT 2026 at Harrisburg University, August 25-27, 2026. That event is a natural place to demonstrate the partnership to defence manufacturing stakeholders already evaluating inspection and qualification tools.

The structural logic of the deal is straightforward. Phase3D has technology that works. Its existing defence deployments prove that. What it lacked was a partner with established relationships across the sprawling North American defence manufacturing base. Phillips Federal fills that gap. For defence organizations that have been waiting for a clear procurement path to Phase3D systems, the partnership creates one through a vendor they already know.