A quality control system for assessing quality of a manufactured part in an additive manufacturing apparatus , comprising: a laser scanning system ; a thermal imaging device ; a control computer , wherein the control computer is configured to: initiate laser scanning of a building area in the additive manufacturing apparatus in order to manufacture the part by scanning successive layers of powder deposited by a recoating device of the apparatus; cause the thermal imaging device to capture images of at least a portion of the building area during the laser scanning of the building area; store the captured images as thermal data in a memory; store the build process data in the memory; derive a thermal history for a point in the part from the stored captured images and build process data, by selecting the point for consideration, retrieving the stored thermal data and the stored build process data associated with the selected point and calculating a thermal history curve for the point for consideration based on the retrieved data, such that the derived thermal history comprises temperature as a function of time for the point during laser scanning and recoating; and compare the derived thermal history with a comparable stored thermal history associated with a master model, wherein, a comparison of the derived thermal history with the stored thermal history indicates whether the part is conformal to the master model. a laser scanning system ; a thermal imaging device ; a control computer , wherein the control computer is configured to: initiate laser scanning of a building area in the additive manufacturing apparatus in order to manufacture the part by scanning successive layers of powder deposited by a recoating device of the apparatus; cause the thermal imaging device to capture images of at least a portion of the building area during the laser scanning of the building area; store the captured images as thermal data in a memory; store the build process data in the memory; derive a thermal history for a point in the part from the stored captured images and build process data, by selecting the point for consideration, retrieving the stored thermal data and the stored build process data associated with the selected point and calculating a thermal history curve for the point for consideration based on the retrieved data, such that the derived thermal history comprises temperature as a function of time for the point during laser scanning and recoating; and compare the derived thermal history with a comparable stored thermal history associated with a master model, wherein, a comparison of the derived thermal history with the stored thermal history indicates whether the part is conformal to the master model. initiate laser scanning of a building area in the additive manufacturing apparatus in order to manufacture the part by scanning successive layers of powder deposited by a recoating device of the apparatus; cause the thermal imaging device to capture images of at least a portion of the building area during the laser scanning of the building area; store the captured images as thermal data in a memory; store the build process data in the memory; derive a thermal history for a point in the part from the stored captured images and build process data, by selecting the point for consideration, retrieving the stored thermal data and the stored build process data associated with the selected point and calculating a thermal history curve for the point for consideration based on the retrieved data, such that the derived thermal history comprises temperature as a function of time for the point during laser scanning and recoating; and compare the derived thermal history with a comparable stored thermal history associated with a master model, wherein, a comparison of the derived thermal history with the stored thermal history indicates whether the part is conformal to the master model. <EOS>