30 March 2026
- DISCMAM returned to AM Village for the second consecutive year, strengthening its presence in Europe’s leading Additive Manufacturing event.
- The workshop engaged 25 participants, including key representatives from European Ministries of Defence and the Spanish Air Force.
AM Village 2026 positioned itself once again as a key meeting point for the European Additive Manufacturing ecosystem, bringing together over 800 participants from more than 120 organisations at the Albacete Air Base (Spain). This five-day event provided a unique space where collaboration, innovation and cutting-edge Additive Manufacturing technologies came together, gathering.
DISCMAM had a strong presence throughout the event, particularly during the workshop session, which achieved excellent engagement with around 25 attendees. Representatives from the consortium — Juan Carlos Pereira (LORTEK), Daniel Ferreira (Teknologisk Institut), Nils Knofius and Tobias Rønneberg (Fieldmade) — actively contributed, fostering discussions around the project’s approach and results.
From theory to practice: DISCMAM in action at AM Village
The AM Village programme featured more than 160 activities, including briefings, seminars, workshops, demonstrations and hands-on sessions. On 17 March in the afternoon, DISCMAM partners played a leading role by hosting the workshop SW15: “Quality assurance and quality control methods in on-site PBF-LB metal AM: bridging digital manufacturing for the defence sector”.
The session attracted strong interest from attendees, including representatives from the Ministries of Defence of Belgium, Denmark, Portugal and Germany, as well as the Spanish Air Force. It provided a valuable platform to exchange views on quality assurance and control (QA/QC), standardisation and the digital tools being developed within the project.
Discussions highlighted a key takeaway: achieving reliable and consistent quality in deployed manufacturing environments remains one of the main challenges — and priorities — for operational effectiveness.
As part of DISCMAM’s participation, Fieldmade led a dedicated demonstration showcasing an on-site metal AM hub using PBF-LB technology through the NOMAD®03 system. This activity provided participants with a real-life view of how DISCMAM solutions can be deployed in operational environments, complementing the discussions held during the workshop.
To further demonstrate these capabilities in practice, one of the project’s parts — the Unimog Compressor Cover — was used to demonstrate:
- Fast on-site quality assurance using Plastometrex equipment available on-site.
- Post-processing operations supported by Rösler equipment.
As highlighted by Daniel Ferreira:
“We successfully demonstrated to many stakeholders that quality assurance in on-site deployed AM is essential. We managed to identify a defective part — not distinguishable by visual inspection — using fast on-site QA methodologies within the Fieldmade Nomad®3 containerised solution”.
This effective demonstration was further recognised with Fieldmade AS receiving the “Best Performance” award at the event, underlining the significant contribution of DISCMAM’s digital solutions to ensuring high-quality on-site spare parts manufacturing within portable and containerised environments.
AM Village 2026: Driving European AM forward
The third edition of AM Village once again met expectations, reinforcing its role as a key meeting point for the European AM community. The event was jointly organised by the European Defence Agency (EDA) and the Spanish Air and Space Force.
In the words of Martin Huber, Project Manager for Logistics & Additive Manufacturing at EDA: “AM Village is a space where practice overrides theory and collaboration overrides competition — a true capability-driven environment shaped by and for the AM community”.
AM Village 2026 fostered collaboration, synergies and the exchange of experiences in the use of Additive Manufacturing in the field at an unprecedented scale. Beyond technological advancements, the event clearly highlighted a shared direction: advancing towards resilient, field-ready supply chains and qualified AM parts at scale.
In this context, initiatives like DISCMAM contribute directly to this mission by developing secure digital supply chains and enabling on-site manufacturing capabilities, supporting Europe’s technological autonomy and operational readiness.
Juan Carlos Pereira (project coordinator) concludes regarding this event:
“The interactions between DISCMAM partners and military stakeholders’ highlights the importance of advancing secure digital supply chains and on-site metal additive manufacturing capabilities to strengthen operational efficiency across Europe. This latest edition of AM Village has seen an unprecedented increase in collaboration, synergies, and the exchange of experiences regarding the use of additive manufacturing in the defence sector”.
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