• The AM Village gathered around 400 professionals from the Additive Manufacturting sector.
• DISCMAM representatives held a workshop to showcase the project’s objectives, use cases, and solutions that will be developed over the course of the project.

From May 13th to 17th, the ‘Additive Manufacturing Village 2024’ (AM Village 2024) brought together around 400 leading Additive Manufacturing experts from the EU Armed Forces, defence industry, research centres, and academia to discuss and advance cutting-edge industrial Additive Manufacturing (AM) capabilities.

The event took place in Tournai, Belgium, organized by the European Defence Agency (EDA) in collaboration with the Multinational Logistic Coordination Center (MLCC, Czech Armed Forces), and hosted by the Belgium Defence Logistic School (Belgium Army). The focus was on testing and demonstrating deployable AM technology and tailored manufacturing methods for military applications.

DISCMAM Workshop: showcasing cutting-edge solutions

The AM Village featured five days of 16 seminars and capability workshops, 30 presentations on additive manufacturing-specific topics, 12 demonstrations, and hands-on interactions among participants. This second edition of the event aimed to build on the findings from the 2023 first edition, further reviewing industrial AM capabilities and demonstrating deployable AM technology and manufacturing methods for diverse military use cases.

Members from the DISCMAM project, including Marta Muñiz Mangas (Lortek), Nina Rooijakkers, Véronique Zijlstra and Nils Knofius (Fieldmade), Niccolò Maccarini (TU/e), and Daniel Ferreira (Danish Technological Institute), organized and delivered Workshop 12 titled ‘Metal Additive Manufacturing Technologies and Digital Solutions to Enable On-Site Maintenance in Defence’ on the afternoon of May 15th.

During the seminar, our representatives introduce their entities and expertise in the sector and showcased DISCMAM’s innovative solution and objectives, setting the foundation for a new business model aimed at remote-assisted on-site maintenance operations.

“Our participation the AM Village has been an opportunity to meet and exchange experiences with leading experts in the field. It allowed us to better understand our project objectives and the real needs in the field, and to continue to work together to push the boundaries and accelerate the adoption of AM technology within the Armed Forces”.

Marta Muñiz, Lortek.

Following our participation in the AM Village, and with almost six months of project progress, DISCMAM will meet at the next consortium meeting to evaluate the developments made so far and plan the next steps for transforming military logistics with on-site metal additive manufacturing innovations. We remain committed to continuing our collaboration and advancing the integration of AM technology within military operations.