TÜV Süd reports that the obstacles to establishing industrial-scale additive manufacturing have to date been a technological maturity largely still in its early stages and a lack of experience with the methods used. The new specification should now help companies establish risk minimization and quality assurance for industrial-scale additive manufacturing within six months. Among other things, DIN SPEC 17071 should help reduce to a minimum the often over 200 different variables that once had to be considered. For industrial-scale additive manufacturing, the benefits of this include a reduction in the number of supplier audits and simplified component purchasing. In addition to TÜV Süd, Siemens, Deutsche Bahn, and MT Aerospace were also involved in compiling the standard. The standard will now serve as the basis for an international ISO standard.

However, the situation is not simple, as specialist portal ingenieur.de writes under the warlike headline ‘The standardization war in additive manufacturing’. The Association of German Engineers (VDI), for instance, is also working on standards for additive manufacturing. Moreover, the multitude of manufacturing processes makes standardization difficult.