A new whitepaper from Amsight, titled "Mastering Powder Management in Additive Manufacturing," reveals critical insights into powder control, now deemed a decisive quality issue in industrial metal additive manufacturing. This timely release highlights the strategic importance of systematic powder management for ensuring part quality, process stability, and audit readiness.
What Happened
Amsight's whitepaper, released on August 6, 2026, delves into the complexities of powder management in powder-bed additive manufacturing, particularly focusing on metal powder-bed fusion and laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) environments. The document outlines how powders, often mistakenly considered static inputs, undergo significant changes through processes such as reuse, exposure, handling, sieving, blending, and storage. These transformations impact chemistry, particle size distribution, morphology, flowability, and ultimately, the quality and stability of the parts produced.
Tim Wischeropp, CEO at Amsight, emphasizes that powder management transcends mere material handling, positioning it as a pivotal quality-management task. The whitepaper provides a practical guide, scrutinizing four dominant powder reuse strategies—single use, fixed refresh ratio, batch method, and blending. Each strategy presents trade-offs in terms of cost, waste, simplicity, traceability, and quality control.
The document also advocates for a shift from fixed cycle limits to condition-based control, urging manufacturers to identify critical-to-quality powder characteristics and link them to part outcomes. This approach involves setting control limits and applying statistical process control (SPC) to detect drift and ensure continuous monitoring of powder properties.
What This Means for Your Business
For businesses in the architecture, engineering, construction, and manufacturing (AECM) sectors, the insights from Amsight's whitepaper offer a roadmap to enhance quality assurance and compliance in additive manufacturing. By adopting the best practices outlined, including standards-aligned thinking, centralised audit-ready documentation, and full powder traceability, companies can reduce scrap risk and ensure audit readiness.
This focus on quality management can significantly impact procurement processes and compliance requirements. As industries increasingly adopt additive manufacturing, understanding and implementing robust powder management strategies will be crucial for maintaining competitive positioning and optimizing return on investment (ROI).
What US Operators Should Watch
US operators should monitor developments in powder management techniques and align their practices with the best practices recommended in the whitepaper. As the industry moves towards condition-based control, staying updated on critical-to-quality powder characteristics and integrating these into production workflows will be essential.
Moreover, organizations should prepare for potential regulatory changes that may arise as the importance of powder management in quality assurance becomes more recognized. Ensuring operator qualification and maintaining controlled infrastructure will be key in meeting future compliance standards and securing federal contracts.
Source: http://www.ManufacturingTomorrow.com/news/2026/08/06/amsight-releases-new-whitepaper-on-powder-management-in-additive-manufacturing/28004. Read the original story ->
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