- Value [1] Manufacturing
- Manufacturing plays a critical role in the American economy, underpins U.S. innovation, and is essential to national security.
The health and performance of the U.S. manufacturing sector has become a topic of national interest and concern. In 2011,
11 of 19 major U.S. manufacturing industries produced less than they did in 2000 [1]. Over this same decade, more than 65,000
manufacturing establishments—nearly one in six—ceased operation [2], the United States share of global exports of advanced
technology products fell from 21 percent to 15 percent [3], and the sector eliminated more than 5 million jobs.
- Value [2] Economic Prosperity
- The fundamental contributions of manufacturing to economic prosperity are evident from national and international perspectives.
The U.S. manufacturing sector continues to be a mainstay of our economic productivity, generating $1.8 trillion in GDP in
2011 (12.2% of total U.S. GDP). Manufacturing firms lead the nation in exports: The $1.3 trillion of manufactured goods shipped
abroad constituted 86% of all U.S. goods exported in 2011. Moreover, manufacturing has a larger multiplier effect than any
other major economic activity—$1 spent in manufacturing generates $1.35 in additional economic activity [4]. Manufacturing's
underpinning role also is corroborated in international studies. For example, according to the World Economic Forum, over
70 percent of the income variations of 128 nations are explained by differences in manufacturing product export [5].
- Value [3] Jobs
- U.S. manufacturing has begun to rebound from the recession of 2008 - 2010. The sector has recovered more than 500,000 jobs
since January 2010 and the number of job openings for skilled factory workers has increased significantly. Still, the sector
faces formidable challenges from a growing number of increasingly capable international competitors. Even as foreign nations
and companies position themselves for advantage in markets for high-value-added products, the nature of manufacturing itself
is undergoing transformative changes.
- Value [4] Defense
- The United States response to these challenges and changes will have significant impact on the Nation's future prosperity
and its ability to meet future challenges in areas as diverse as defense, energy independence, transportation, and public
health.
- Value [5] Energy Independence
- Value [6] Transportation
- Value [7] Public Health
- Value [8] Competitiveness
- Numerous factors -- private and public -- shape the competitiveness and innovation performance of U.S. manufacturing, as documented
in a stream of recent reports [6-17]. Common weaknesses identified in many of these studies might be labeled as "missed opportunities"
or failures to reap the full economic and commercial value from public investments in research. There are many examples where
materials and product technologies were innovated in the United States, but most of the significant commercial market share
they enabled was lost to other countries. They include rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, oxide ceramics, semiconductor memory
devices, manufacturing equipment such as wafer steppers, flat panel displays, robotics, solar cells, and advanced lighting.
- Value [9] Innovation
- Value [10] R&D
- As summed up by the National Science and Technology Council, "A gap exists between R&D activities and the deployment of technological
innovations in domestic production of goods," contributing significantly, for example, to the growing trade deficit in high-value-added,
advanced technology products [8].
- Value [11] Domestic Production
- Value [12] Manufacturing Performance
- Other nations and their manufacturing industries are investing and mobilizing resources to strengthen their manufacturing
performance. Germany, Korea, and Japan each have more R&D-intensive manufacturing efforts than the United States [7].
- Value [13] Government-Industry-Academia Partnerships
- These and other nations have established government-industry-academia partnerships to spur industrial innovation [8].
- Value [14] Innovation Infrastructure
- Similar large-scale public-private partnerships in the United States could accelerate the development of innovation infrastructure
and strengthen the Nation's position in the global competition for new products, new markets, and new jobs. Although the United
States has many elements of an innovation ecosystem, the assortment of joint centers, incubators, demonstration facilities,
economic development partnerships, and other assets with innovation-related objectives tends to be fragmented and does not
support an overarching U.S. manufacturing strategy.
- Value [15] Basic Science
- Historically and even today, the United States has excelled at basic science and invention. But the commercial and economic
rewards that can sprout and grow from these important early-stage accomplishments are realized in the stages following initial
discovery -- especially at the points of manufacturing scale-up and commercialization. This is especially true for complex,
cost-efficient, high-value-added products that require development and mastery of equally complex manufacturing processes
before successful commercialization can be achieved.
- Value [16] Invention
- Value [17] Commercialization
- Value [18] Manufacturing Capacity
- To strengthen U.S. innovation and manufacturing capacity and reverse the trend in which more research, production and design
facilities, and supporting functions are sited overseas requires a robust innovation policy, as outlined in the administration's
A National Strategic Plan for Advanced Manufacturing[8]. A key component of this innovation policy is the creation of public-private
partnerships to accelerate investment in and deployment of advanced manufacturing technologies, which the Steering Committee
of the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership, composed of U.S. industry and university leaders, has recommended [7].
- Value [19] Partnerships
- Through long-term partnerships, the Institutes will be able to maintain a sustained focus on manufacturing technology innovation,
workforce development, the transfer of promising new processes and technologies to the manufacturing sector, and the support
of small- and medium-sized enterprises and aspiring start-ups for developing advanced manufacturing know-how and capabilities.
- Value [20] Workforce Development
- Value [21] Clustering
- A key feature of the network and its individual IMIs is a strong focus on building clusters of advanced manufacturing capabilities
that join expertise from industry, academia, and government. The NNMI will leverage existing resources with the aim of capturing
the economic value of U.S. research and early-stage innovation. It will close the gap now separating American inventions,
research discoveries, and ideas from the development and scale-up of domestic manufacturing capabilities necessary to make
-- and sell -- products based on those U.S. innovations.
- Value [22] Linkages
- Emphasis will be on linking and integrating existing public and private resources into a robust national innovation ecosystem
anchored by regional nodes of advanced manufacturing capabilities, where the processes to build next-generation products will
be developed, demonstrated, and refined to the point where there is a clearer, lower-risk path to commercial-scale manufacturing.
Institutes will facilitate and accelerate the applied and commercial development of basic research results -- the outputs
of work supported, for example, by the National Science Foundation or the Department of Energy's Office of Science. At IMIs,
these promising "seeds" of future technologies will undergo further development and refinement into manufacturing-relevant
processes and approaches for next-generation, commercially feasible products and applications that are made in the United
States. IMIs are furthermore intended to produce benefits across agency boundaries that broadly support the competitiveness
of U.S. manufacturers.
- Value [23] Integration
- Value [24] Risk-Reduction
- Value [25] Benchmarking
- A benchmark for the NNMI institutes is the pilot institute on additive manufacturing, the National Additive Manufacturing
Innovation Institute (NAMII). Launched in August 2012, NAMII is centered in Youngstown, Ohio. NAMII is composed of a broad
coalition of more than 80 companies, nine research universities, six community colleges and 18 not-for-profit institutions.
While it differs from the proposed NNMI and its Institutes (a single topic was selected apriori, and funding was based on
existing programs from a number of agencies), NAMII demonstrates a number of IMI attributes. Significantly, industry and regional
interests acted together to leverage the Federal investment of $30 million with a combined co-investment of $39 million.
- Value [26] Piloting
- Value [27] Demonstration
- Value [28] Public Engagement
- The proposed NNMI has been designed using a broad public engagement strategy, and it builds on a review of best practices
used to establish the pilot institute. Public engagement was pursued through a series of workshops held nationwide as well
as through comments received by the AMNPO's Request for Information, published on May 4, 2012.
- Value [29] Best Practices
- The focus of each Institute will be proposed by the applicants and selected through a competitive application process. As
parts of a network, each IMI will: communicate best practices and coordinate efforts with other IMI's; coordinate approaches
on issues such as intellectual property treatment, contract research, and performance metrics; be led by independent, not-for-profit
institutions that coordinate industry partners both locally and nationwide, including SMEs; focus upon workforce development
with its industry and academic partners at the university and community college levels to impact the engineering and technical
workforce; and join in the governance and activities of an NNMI-wide Network Leadership Council. The President's proposal
calls for a one-time $1 billion investment over a 5-7 year period, after which each IMI should be a sustainable center of
excellence.
- Value [30] Coordination
- Value [31] Intellectual Property
- Value [32] Research
- Value [33] Performance Metrics
- Value [34] Centers of Excellence
- Value [35] Industry Focus
- Differences between Existing Programs and the NNMI Vision -- The notable distinctions between NNMI Institutes and existing
Federal programs include: 1. Federal investment level: The I/UCRC and ERC funding levels are an order of magnitude lower per
center than is planned for Institutes. Such centers have a structure typically aligned with university policies and requirements,
and do not have the Institute's industry focus. Workforce development is addressed in ERCs, but community colleges are not
an integral part of an ERC. Leadership originates with research universities, while with Institutes, leadership is provided
by industry, as well as government, academic, public and private laboratories, and any other affected parties that are stakeholders
within that IMI. Research projects for both of the NSF center programs described above target the early stage fundamental
research to proof-of-concept.
- Value [36] Prototyping
- 2. Focus on prototyping and scale-up: The focuses of many of the existing Federal programs and the proposed Institutes are
fundamentally different. With existing Federal programs, the investment is primarily in basic and applied early stage research
without a specific focus on manufacturability and manufacturing processes and technologies. Existing industry investment is
predominantly in late stage research and demonstration and incremental process development. The region between these two investment
areas is recognized as an underfunded and critical area. One of the fundamental concepts central to the NNMI is that a government-industry-academia
partnership will leverage the resources of everyone to address gaps in innovation in the manufacturing space, which includes
both developing manufacturing technologies and designing/modifying products to enable their manufacture.
- Value [37] Scale-Up
- Value [38] SME Client Relationships
- 3. MEP centers were intended to pull applied research, technologies, and innovations from universities, Federal labs, and
other sources to support client SME growth initiatives. Historically, MEP centers have focused on SME process improvements
and quality issues. In recent years, the program has sought to build on that expertise and SME client relationships to accelerate
the rate of adoption of new technologies by clients. MEP connects technology opportunities and SMEs to move new product opportunities
into production and into the market faster and with greater returns on investment. This relatively nascent MEP initiative
would complement NNMI directions.
- Value [39] Industry Driven
- 4. Industry-driven: In the Institutes, industry will have a strong role in the identification of the technology area and research
agenda through their co-investment. NAMII's technology focus on additive manufacturing, in contrast, grew largely out of Federal
agency needs (although the topic is widely supported by industry as a critical focus area). In addition, the industry-wide
cross-cutting focus of NNMI Institutes will often span the research interests of many industry partners, academic partners,
and multiple Federal agencies.
- Value [40] Co-Investment
- 5. Significant industry co-investment: With NNMI, the Federal funding will be heavily leveraged by Institute partners' direct
co-investment at a sufficiently large scale to affect regional economies or entire industry sectors. This will increase the
impact of Federal funding. It will force the Institute to have a pragmatic focus on industrially relevant technologies, and
also will empower the partners as true stakeholders in the Institute's success.
- Value [41] Network Attributes
- 6. Network attributes: The NNMI program includes a vision for the Institutes to interact through a National Network.
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