Additive Assurance Taps XAM to Bring AMiRIS Real-Time Monitoring to Japan

Additive Assurance has signed a distribution agreement with NTT DATA XAM Technologies Corp. to launch its real-time quality assurance solution, AMiRIS, in the Japanese market.

The agreement pairs a developer of quality assurance products for metal powder bed fusion with a distributor that has been supplying EOS machines in Japan since 1993. Under the deal, XAM will handle product sales, implementation support, and technical maintenance for AMiRIS.

A distributor with an installed base

The logic of the partnership is straightforward: XAM already sits inside the customer base Additive Assurance wants to reach. The distributor will link AMiRIS with its existing metal 3D printers, including EOS and AMCM systems, rather than asking users to adopt a monitoring platform in isolation.

Beyond installation, the partners plan to support customers in utilising build data to establish a stable manufacturing foundation — part of a broader aim to promote digital transformation in the Japanese market.

"Through this partnership, we look forward to delivering our innovative real-time quality assurance solutions to customers in Japan and supporting their transition to stable, high-quality mass production," said Marten Jurg, CEO of Additive Assurance.

The trust problem

The commercial push comes as Additive Assurance sharpens its positioning around in-situ monitoring. David Menzies, the company's Chief Commercial Officer, recently discussed the core capabilities of AMiRIS on the Additive Insight podcast, framing the company's mission around a single question: can manufacturers trust the process, and how quickly?

"Metal additive manufacturing is still something that is developing. It's not something that's been around for 200 years. It is still growing, which is great. It is hitting that maturity curve. So it's gone from that prototype, can you do something with this new cool thing, to how well can I make it now? So it's really gone through that big maturation, early cycle as an industry. And the bit that we're trying to solve there as our business, the real challenge there is, can I trust it? And how can I trust it faster? So what we're really about is in situ monitoring, that's looking at stuff real time to see if there's any problems that are occurring in the production process, and then translating that to a quality outcome."

That framing — identifying problems in real time and translating them to a quality outcome — is what AMiRIS is designed to deliver. The Japan agreement, which follows the company's recent partnership with Nikon SLM Solutions, suggests Additive Assurance is building distribution reach in step with its technical ambitions. Whether in-situ monitoring becomes standard practice in production LPBF remains an open question, but the company is clearly betting that trust, not novelty, is now the bottleneck.