SANTA FE, NM-Sigma Labs Inc. has been awarded a Phase I Small Business Innovation and Research (SBIR) contract by the US Navy for rapid qualification of parts made using direct digital manufacturing (DDM).

"We are pleased to receive this contract, which will generate up to $150,000 in revenues, as it enhances our current US Air Force Phase II SBIR contract that we expect to complete in 2011 and will generate up to $750,000 in revenues,” Sigma Labs President Mark Cola says. “The US Navy contract extends our IPQA technology and will allow us to focus on developing and deploying a product into this fast-growing market segment."

"DDM has come a long way since we initiated early developments in the 1980s at Los Alamos,” says Richard Mah, CEO of Sigma Labs. “Within a few years, we believe that parts will go directly from computer models to physical hardware, and onto aircrafts faster and more reliably than ever before."