Partnerships that accelerate industrial AM
The Additive Manufacturing Alliance is born from the union of AM I Navigator and Leading Minds to transform the complexity of additive manufacturing into scalable industrial processes. Partnerships with Materialise, Siemens and other industry giants are building concrete operational platforms to overcome the experimental phase.
A new alliance to scale AM
The union between AM I Navigator and Leading Minds creates a coordinated structure to spread best practices and operational tools in the industrial sector.
L’annuncio è arrivato durante Additive Manufacturing Strategies 2026 a New York. Brigitte de Vet-Veithen, CEO di Materialise, e Karsten Heuser, VP Additive Manufacturing di Siemens, hanno presentato l’Additive Manufacturing Alliance come risposta concreta alle barriere di adozione.
The two initiatives maintain their own identity but collaborate on selected activities. Leading Minds focuses on building awareness and reducing confusion around AM. AM I Navigator provides structured tools to assess and improve production maturity.
- Leading Minds e AM I Navigator operano insieme sotto l’Additive Manufacturing Alliance
- Materialise and Siemens lead the initiative with a focus on industrialization
- The joint activities cover knowledge sharing and industrial communication
The stated objective is to make additive manufacturing more accessible, less complex and integrated into daily industrial production. The collaboration aims to connect awareness and practical execution.
From theory to production: the role of platforms
Partnerships are not limited to promotion, but offer concrete models for integrating AM into existing production processes.
AM I Navigator is a structured tool launched at Formnext 2023 by Siemens, DyeMansion, HP, BASF Forward AM and EOS. It allows companies to assess their AM maturity and build roadmaps towards automation, quality and economic sustainability.
The maturity model helps identify gaps not only technological but also organizational. Many companies stop at the proof of concept due to lack of clear metrics and dedicated governance.
Implementation path
- Awareness: Leading Minds involves decision-makers and less mature sectors through events and targeted communication.
- Assessment: AM I Navigator assesses internal maturity with benchmarks and real use cases.
- Industrialization: operational roadmaps translate the assessment into pilot projects and series production.
Since its launch, AM I Navigator has supported several industrial transformation programs. Companies use its model to align investments along the process chain and derive clear roadmaps.
How industry giants drive change
Companies like Materialise and Siemens are defining operational roadmaps to simplify the adoption of additive manufacturing on a large scale.
Other industrial partnerships follow the same operational model. Interspectral has extended its collaboration with Pankl Racing Systems to accelerate industrialization through process monitoring, quality assurance, and data-driven workflows.
Pankl becomes a reference customer and development partner for the AM Explorer platform. The implementation covers anomaly detection, qualification workflows, data integration, and real-time monitoring.
Partnerships focus on reliability, performance, and long-term support rather than just technical features. System integration moves from “nice to have” to a requirement for real production.
The collaboration between Interspectral and Pankl includes joint case studies and industrial presentations to share best practices. The goal is to make AM a more reliable and scalable production technology.
Materialise stated that the Alliance can help more companies in different industries benefit from the flexibility and innovation of AM. Target sectors include aerospace, defense, medical, automotive, and industrial goods.
Conclusion
Industrial partnerships in additive manufacturing are not generic strategic alliances. They are operational platforms that provide concrete tools, maturity models, and shared roadmaps to overcome the complexity of implementation.
The combination of awareness building and assessment tools creates a clear path from experiment to large-scale production. Discover how your company can integrate these solutions without reinventing the process each time.
article written with the help of artificial intelligence systems
Q&A
What is the Additive Manufacturing Alliance and which companies lead the initiative?
The Additive Manufacturing Alliance arises from the union between AM I Navigator and Leading Minds and is promoted by Materialise and Siemens. It was presented during the Additive Manufacturing Strategies 2026 in New York by Brigitte de Vet-Veithen (CEO of Materialise) and Karsten Heuser (VP AM at Siemens). The alliance aims to overcome adoption barriers by transforming AM from an experimental technology to a scalable industrial process.
What is the role of AM I Navigator in the industrialization path?
AM I Navigator is a structured tool launched at Formnext 2023 that allows companies to evaluate their production maturity in additive manufacturing. Through a maturity model, it helps identify technological and organizational gaps and build operational roadmaps toward automation, quality, and economic sustainability.
How does Leading Minds operate within the alliance?
Leading Minds focuses on the awareness phase, engaging decision-makers and less mature sectors through events and targeted communication. Its goal is to build awareness and reduce confusion around additive manufacturing, acting as a bridge between theoretical knowledge and practical application.
What are the three phases of the implementation path described in the article?
The path is structured in three phases: awareness, in which Leading Minds raises awareness among decision-makers; assessment, in which AM I Navigator evaluates internal maturity with benchmarks and real use cases; industrialization, in which operational roadmaps translate into pilot projects and serial production.
What distinguishes the industrial partnerships described from mere strategic alliances?
Unlike generic alliances, these partnerships are concrete operational platforms that provide tangible tools, maturity models, and shared roadmaps. The focus is shifted from mere technical features to reliability, performance, and long-term support for real production.
What is the goal of the collaboration between Interspectral and Pankl Racing Systems?
The collaboration aims to accelerate the industrialization of AM through process monitoring, quality assurance, and data-driven workflows. Pankl serves as a reference customer and development partner for Interspectral's AM Explorer platform, covering anomaly detection, qualification, and real-time data integration.
