Over the past five years, AM has re-invigorated the perception of engineering jobs, thus bringing a new generation of enthusiastic learners, as well as experienced engineers eager to learn new skills. Concurrently, there is a substantial need for highly-trained expertise in this sector, as demonstrated by the high demand for the University of Waterloo’s trained engineers with an advanced skill set and deep understanding of the metal AM technology and business case knowledge. The availability of trained AM experts is a key factor for AM business scale-up and serial production. AMA directly impacts the manufacturing workforce by facilitating the development of advanced industry workshops and training programs (additive manufacturing technology adoption and business considerations, design for additive manufacturing, materials and process optimization, etc.).

AMA helps to stablish a collaborative environment to create innovation, industrial growth, and in-demand jobs through establishing flexible collaborations and information exchange between strategically-selected partners to build a Canadian supply chain in AM for sectors. AMA program provides to both large companies, working on high-priority, technically sensitive projects in a dedicated, purpose-built space, as well as SMEs that cannot afford to own metal AM equipment but wish to evaluate its applicability to their business. The AMA is positioned to provide industry insights that can be used to justify (or understand the risk of) the adoption of AM to gain a competitive advantage.

AMA helps companies to promote productivity growth that in turn will have positive impact on competition, innovation, employment and wages. Several key and strategic activities that will foster the scale up are pursued. To this end, kay factors, such as accessibility to talents, upskilling the existing staff for the target products, accessibility to tools and knowledge to innovate, and accessibility to the leadership to balance ambition and reality are provided by AMA. In addition, acceleration of R&D activities for a large number of partners through immediate support in areas of crucial need, including metal AM machine development, software and data analytics, low-cost metal powder adoption, process optimization, design optimization, sensor integration, materials and products characterization aid our partners to grow and be ready for serial production.