Due to the digital transformation, products as well as production and economic processes are changing massively and with increasing speed. The new requirements that go hand in hand with this present the established system of quality infrastructure (QI) with new challenges.

In order to meet these challenges, all quality assurance processes, such as conformity assessment, accreditation, certification and market surveillance, must be fully digitalised. All those involved must be digitally networked and act interoperably.

The PTB is therefore working together with the other players in national QI to implement a digitally transformed, interoperable and future-oriented quality infrastructure, the QI-Digital.

To this end, PTB's work consistently builds on the existing digital projects: digital, machine-readable certificates, digital networked processes, new production methods and artificial intelligence (AI). In QI-Digital, these are dovetailed with PTB's existing competences in the quality infrastructure - nationally and globally.

Additive manufacturing offers new possibilities for the flexible production of complex products. For small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in particular, this opens up a wide range of economic potential.

Together with the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM), the PTB is developing effective and efficient methods for quality assurance in additive manufacturing in QI-Digital with the aim of transferring the corresponding competences to SMEs.