When America Makes, America Works®
Cooperative Agreement (CA) managed through Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Contract Vehicle
396 Projects (107 Active)
Project Portfolio
368 as of June 2026 from Industry, Academia, and Government Membership
12,000 ft2 of convening/collaboration space in Youngstown, Ohio Facility
Portfolio valued at $659.4M
Expenditures & Cost Share
Additive Manufacturing / 3D Printing
MII Technology Vertical
August 2012
MII Established
Youngstown, Ohio
Institute Location
National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining (NCDMM) Non-profit Legal Entity
To accelerate the adoption of additive manufacturing by convening, coordinating, and catalyzing the AM industry to help advance U.S. manufacturing competitiveness and security.
MISSION
Proud to partner with:
Strategic Focus Areas
Technology Development
Advancing Research & TechnologyPartner with industry to drive investments in pre- competitive applied research and industrially-relevant manufacturing technologies.
Industrial Base Integration
Increase Awareness & Adoption of AM through regional, state, and national communities of practice within key regions and across industry, aligned around common objectives to spur economic growth and secure American competitiveness.
Education & WorkforceDevelopment
Securing Human CapitalEducate, train, and grow the advanced manufacturing workforce by developing accessible industry-relevant tools to build strong talent pathways in AM.
Strategic Framework
Approach to generate meaningful and sustainable impact
Convene
Membership engagement captured as the voice of industry via roadmaps, working and advisory groups, workshops and strategic account management Scale
Scale and amplify impacts through effective reuse of pre-competitive research, training assets, and ecosystem programs Identify
Understand and document the strategic needs and gaps while serving as an unbiased convener to ensure comprehensive perspectives are considered
Disseminate
Thought leadership shared through CORE data repository, Technical Review & Exchange, strategic communications, standards, conferences, events, and publications Prioritize
Strategic prioritization through pre-competitive roadmaps and national investment plans to reduce barriers, connect dots, and curate inputs to ensure an effective national strategy Execute
Verify and validate results, execution excellence in managing member-led efforts addressing prioritized research, EWD, and ecosystem requirements Approach in place since inception of the Institute, and the foundation of how America Makes delivers value to the DoD, AM ecosystem, and nation.
Aerospace and Defense Applications
Lightweight Flight Components
Enabled by AM design optimization
Rapid Sustainment & Repair
On‑demand component restoration and replacement
Contested Logistics
Distributed manufacturing for resilient part availability High‑Performance Materials for Extreme Environments
Advanced alloys and processing controls for
Flight‑Critical Part Certification
Qualification methods and statistically based allowables Unmanned Systems
Rapid iteration of tactical drones in attritable settings
Impact of America Makes
Technology Development
Reducing novel material commercialization from 10+ years to 5 Reduced AM certification timelines from 30 years to 7
Delta Qual: Faster requalification; enabling AM supply‑chain agility Industrial Base Integration
AMCPR, AMNOW, JAMMEX: supply chain readiness; resilient industrial base with interoperable suppliers ATLAS‑3D → Siemens Sunata™: Lab‑to‑market tool transition for distortion prediction & orientation automation Education & Workforce Development
400K courses taken by >100K learners through ToolingU-SME additive program AMTrain: Modern EdTech platform for curated state of the art additive training 4,188 service members + Vets impacted over the past 5 years
Why Aren’t We Done Yet?
Number of commercially available materials
Number of qualified sources of supply
Knowledge base
Implementation of DfAM
Trained workforce
Manufacturing operations experience
Size of parts
Feature sizes (e.g., section thickness)
Most suited towards high mix, low volume applications
Serviceability, maintenance, and limitations not well understood Repeatability and reproducibility
Qualification (material, process, product)
Qualification cost and efficiency
Inspectability – technology and efficiency
Fracture critical parts
Certification
Cost and cost reduction
Scaling to full production (equivalence, requalification efficiency) Can vs. should
Access to capital
Vendor qualification
Remaining Challenges
Known Limitations
Important aspects still need to be solved in all 3 strategic focus areas: Technology, EWD, and Industrial Base
Convene. Coordinate. Catalyze.
We CATALYZE industry through collaborative projects, delivering high value and high impact Project Calls & Directed Projects
Manufacturing Readiness
Teaming
Supply Chain Development
We COORDINATE AM technical and workforce data to transform industry CORE Data Repository
Technology Roadmap
Sector Specific Roadmaps
Standardization Collaborative
We CONVENE the most brilliant minds from government, industry, and academia to accelerate AM innovation Working & Advisory Groups
Events (TRX, MMX)
Tradeshows & Conferences
Workshops & Trainings