Oct 9, 2017 | By Tess
The Lanterman Group, a 3D printing solutions firm, has teamed up with America Makes, a national accelerator program for 3D printing, to establish a nationally recognized training program for 3D printing geared towards industry and government.
Called the Advanced Curriculum in Additive Design, Engineering, and Manufacturing Innovation (or ACADEMI for short), the training program is reportedly the United States’ “first hands-on certification program” for end-to-end 3D printing training.
The initiative was conceived of by Anthony Hughes, the founder of The Lanterman Group and an ardent 3D printing promoter. By working closely with America Makes, Hughes is confident his ACADEMI curriculum will enable businesses and organizations to find optimal solutions for product development, design, and manufacturing with 3D printing technologies.
“The manufacturing field is going through a huge rebirth right now,” Hughes commented. “We need to think differently about how we are going to give workers the right set of skills to thrive during this change, because making 3D printed parts is a lot more complicated than picking up a single skill.”
As he continues to explain, adopting 3D printing technologies is often seen by companies as beneficial from a financial and production time perspective. But the “true game-changer,” he says, is in design innovation.
“3D printing provides enormous design freedoms that can unlock a multitude of benefits if we free ourselves from thinking that a product or part must look the same as it always has," Hughes says. "I want to teach people how to explore new possibilities and create the products of tomorrow."
With the ACADEMI training program, the aim is to attract innovative individuals and teams from industry and government who will learn about 3D printing technologies in a specific capacity, being trained on using the technology for a particular application, for instance.
Anthony Hughes, founder of The Lanterman Group
Described as an “application-oriented” approach, ACADEMI will offer bespoke end-to-end training for participants. As Rob Gorham, executive director of America Makes, explains, “You start with a problem statement built around a real, industrial-based application need, and you end with a capstone project that is actually demonstrating and validating the learnings in a real-world environment.”
So far, the ACADEMI program has already been used by the Unites States Department of Defense and the U.S. Air Force, both of which leveraged the training program to adopt and benefit from metal 3D printing technology.
Hughes explains that the program’s first courses are geared towards metal additive manufacturing, but that training curriculum for polymer and composite-based 3D printing technologies will be added in due time. Also, while the current program is mostly aimed at technicians, ACADEMI will also soon offer management and executive-level courses.
“In the grand scheme of things, I would like for ACADEMI to have a significant impact on the productivity of individual companies as well as be a catalyst for broad industry adoption,” concluded Hughes. “I hope companies can look at us and say, ‘You allowed us to significantly cut the time it took for us to get our 3D printed innovation to market, from two years to six months.'”
Posted in 3D Printer Company
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