Stratasys wins funding to scale production ready additive manufacturing from America Makes and Department of War

Stratasys has announced it has been awarded funding through The 2026 America Makes and the Department of War (DoW) Organic Industrial Base (OIB) Modernisation Challenge that focuses on advancing additive manufacturing and related technologies to support defence manufacturing modernisation.

The 24 month award will support development of on-site quality assurance capabilities for Stratasys’ F3300 and F900 industrial FDM platforms. This will enable manufacturers to generate the real time process data needed to scale additive manufacturing production, expand capacity and reduce reliance on costly post build inspection and qualification.

America Makes and the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute, bring together industry, government and academia to accelerate the adoption of advanced manufacturing technologies that strengthen US manufacturing competitiveness and defence readiness. Through the 2026 OIB Modernisation Challenge, America Makes is supporting projects that advance manufacturing capabilities critical to industrial production, resilient supply chains and the defence industrial base.

‘The next phase of additive manufacturing adoption within the defence industrial base is about moving from isolated applications to qualified, scalable production,’ said John Wilczynski, executive director of America Makes. ‘Stratasys’ work to advance in-situ monitoring on established polymer production platforms addresses a critical part of that challenge – building greater trust in the manufacturing process and generating the data needed to support qualification. This project will create a stronger foundation for expanding additive manufacturing across production, sustainment and supply chain applications throughout the defence enterprise.’

The project is designed to address one of the key barriers limiting broader adoption of additive manufacturing in production environments: the ability to verify part quality efficiently, consistently and with sufficient technical evidence to support scale. Today, manufacturers in highly regulated industries often rely on extensive post-print inspection and qualification processes before parts can be deployed. By enabling quality data to be captured during the build process, in-situ quality assurance can help manufacturers reduce inspection burdens, compress qualification cycles and add additive manufacturing capacity with greater confidence.

‘This initiative is about helping manufacturers scale additive production with confidence,’ said Rich Garrity, chief business unit officer, Stratasys. ‘When production teams have access to quality data during the build process, they can qualify applications with less friction, expand production capacity more efficiently and integrate additive manufacturing more effectively into demanding production environments.’

The resulting capabilities are expected to support manufacturers across defence, aerospace, commercial aviation and other industrial markets where traceability, process control and part qualification are critical requirements. For the defence industrial base and defence prime contractors, in-situ quality assurance can help create a stronger technical foundation for expanding additive production capacity. For commercial aviation and highly regulated industrial manufacturers, it can provide a clearer pathway to scale production while reducing the cost and complexity associated with traditional inspection workflows.

The project will focus on developing advanced monitoring capabilities for the F3300 and F900 platforms that provide greater visibility into the additive manufacturing process. By identifying potential anomalies during production and generating the documentation needed to support quality decisions, the technology is intended to help manufacturers improve production consistency, reduce qualification bottlenecks and accelerate adoption of additive manufacturing for production applications.

For manufacturers evaluating additive manufacturing as a scalable production technology, the significance of the initiative extends beyond the monitoring capability itself. The availability of real time, in-process quality data can help transform additive manufacturing from a qualified application by application approach into a more scalable production model, enabling manufacturers to add capacity faster and with greater confidence.

‘America Makes plays a critical role in bringing together industry, government and technology leaders to address some of manufacturing’s most important challenges,’ Rich Garrity added. ‘Collaborative initiatives like this help accelerate innovation and strengthen the capabilities needed to support the future of advanced manufacturing.’

Stratasys’ portfolio of additive manufacturing solutions combines industrial hardware, production grade materials, software and application expertise to help manufacturers improve efficiency, increase production flexibility and solve complex manufacturing challenges across aerospace, transportation and industrial markets.