The American National Standards Institute (ANSI), a nonprofit organization that oversees standards and conformity-assessment activities in the United States, has approved Model-Based Characteristics (MBC) v1.0, Persistent Identification and Related Digital Practices as an American National Standard. Developed by the Digital Metrology Standards Consortium (DMSC), a nonprofit organization that develops standards for digital metrology, MBC 1.0 provides a common method for identifying and exchanging product characteristics within digital engineering models. ANSI designated it DMSC MBC v1.0–2026 and confirmed its approval on May 31, 2026.
Version 1.0 defines nomenclature, symbols, data structures, and practices for tagging and uniquely identifying product characteristics during product realization. Persistent identifiers allow engineering, manufacturing, inspection, and quality systems to reference the same characteristic without depending on manual interpretation of engineering drawings. Tags can identify characteristics required to verify and accept a product, support change control, and document product non-conformances. Optional additions cover criticality classifications, associations with product requirements, and verification plans. Another provision addresses the protection of confidential or classified product-definition information.
“The approval of the Model-Based Characteristics Standard as an American National Standard represents a major milestone for the manufacturing community,” said Curtis Brown, President of DMSC. “As organizations continue their transformation toward a digital Model-Based Enterprise (MBE), standardized digital product characteristics provide the critical connection points that extend the digital thread directly to the product definition itself. By establishing a common, machine-readable language for characteristics, the MBC Standard enables greater automation, improved interoperability, and more trusted digital product information throughout the supply chain.”
The newly approved specification complements the consortium’s Quality Information Framework (QIF), an XML-based standard for transferring information from product design through manufacturing and quality inspection. It supplies the persistent characteristic identifiers used within those processes. Although not developed specifically for additive manufacturing, the approach could apply to 3D printing workflows that use model-based product definitions, inspection data, and quality requirements. Its potential users include aerospace, defense, automotive, medical device, and industrial equipment organizations. Software developers, metrology providers, and systems integrators can also use it to reduce implementation costs and ambiguity in digital product definitions.
Development began in June 2020 through a working group of manufacturing quality specialists. A proposal appeared in the August 25, 2023, edition of ANSI Standards Action and entered a 45-day public review period that ended on October 9, 2023. DMSC released MBC as an internal standard in 2024 while the formal approval process continued. ANSI’s designation followed a consensus-based review involving participants from industry, government, academia, and technology providers. The standards consortium plans to work with manufacturers, software vendors, government agencies, and other standards bodies on implementation. A free download of the 188-page MBC 1.0 standard is available from DMSC.
Connecting manufacturing and inspection data
Data must remain traceable when additive manufacturing work passes between designers, producers, customers, and verification systems. Authentise, a 3D printing software developer, received three grants in 2024 for projects connecting stages of the additive manufacturing digital thread. METAMAT targeted integration between designers, manufacturers, and customers, while DISTOPIA incorporated workflow management and digital certification into plasma directed energy deposition. AM-Verify focused on a different boundary by combining multiple verification streams within a Cyber-Physical Passport.
Fragmented records also impose measurable costs during certified production. AM North, a Norwegian additive manufacturing producer, previously compiled quality evidence across Excel, Word, PDFs, and paper records. Software from additive manufacturing quality-management provider amsight connected planning, build jobs, machine monitoring, post-processing, and inspection data, reducing documentation work from roughly eight hours to between 1.5 and two hours per project. Neither implementation used MBC 1.0, but both show the constraint it addresses: maintaining consistent references as manufacturing and inspection information moves between systems.
3D Printing Industry is inviting speakers for its 2026 Additive Manufacturing Applications (AMA) series, covering Energy, Healthcare, Aerospace, Space and Defense, and Software. Each online event focuses on real production deployments, qualification, and supply chain integration. Practitioners interested in contributing can complete the call for speakers form here.
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Featured image shows MBC Logo. Image via DMSC.
