Federal Advanced Manufacturing Programs

MIT Washington Office

John Halloran, MIT

July 18, 2013

Federal Advanced Manufacturing Programs

1. Programs coordinated by the Advanced Manufacturing National Program Office, hosted by NIST

The website with details about federal manufacturing programming can be found here:

NIST Advanced Manufacturing Technology Consortia (AmTech)

The NIST AMTech Consortia is proposed to receive $21.4 million in the President’s Budget Request for FY 14 and is designed to provide long-term industry road mapping and research grants. NIST officials indicate that based on the agency’s FY13 spending plan, it will have $13.5m to initiate the AmTech program this year, with initial grants of approximately $500,000. The program will be modeled on the Nanoelectronics Research Initiative (NRI), which is a successful previous partnership with a similar mission in that field.It also reflects what Sematech has been able to accomplish in the semiconductor field, assembling the premier technology roadmapping on a world-wide scale through an industry collaboration, to keep the industry on the Moore’s Law pathway of ever greater chip efficiency with ever lower unit costs. AmTech awards will go to industry groups, although universities could partner with industries in these efforts, to develop technology strategies around particular advanced production paradigms. It is not going to be a regional program, but instead an industry sector-focused effort. Offerings should be initiated soon.

The April 18th, 2013 testimony of Dr. Patrick Gallagher, Director of NIST, confirms the $13.5m in FY 13 funding available and can be found here:

The final report of the 2011 Visiting Committee on Advanced Technology (VCAT) of NIST laid the groundwork for the AmTech program and shaped its strategic vision. The report is here:

Investing in Manufacturing Communities Partnership (IMCP)

The Investing in Manufacturing Communities Partnership (IMCP) in 2014 will select five to six communities to receive up to $25 million from the Commerce Department’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) in the FY 2014. As noted below, initial funding is available in FY13. The money will go towards human and physical infrastructure to attract, retain, and expand commercial industry rather than helping a community attract just a single firm. The IMCP funding will be rewarded to communities that develop plans for implementing comparative-advantages, invest in public goods and institutions through public and private funding, and encourage community links that reinforce and expand their commercial appeal to investors.

Phase 1: Multiple federal agencies will hold 6-8 listening sessions in 2013, raising awareness of the grant opportunities and also seeking input on the 2014 pilot. (According to available information, these listening sessions have been held in a jointpartnership between the EDA and the Small Business Administration (SBA) so far.)

Phase 2: Up to 25 communities in 2013 will be awarded $200,000 in order to create implementation strategies, which will combine public and private expertise and needs. The Administration expects to give out these awards in the fall.

Phase 3: Five to six communities will receive $25 million from the EDA along with money from other agencies on the basis of their implementation strategies.

Phase 4: Commerce Department will lead interagency realignment of federal programs to enhance workforce training, technical assistance, specialized research and commercialization centers, infrastructure, and energy efficiency.

An April 17, 2013 Fact Sheet on the IMCP can be found here:

The current Grant Opportunity notice was posted on August 3, 2012 and can be found here:

Make it in America Job Accelerator

The EDA, the National Institute of Standards and Technology Manufacturing Extension Partnership (NIST-MEP), and the Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration (ETA) will participate in a $40 million multi-agency competition to accelerate in-sourcing trends in manufacturing. Projects will be selected based on either on-shoring production activity by U.S. firms, increasing foreign direct investment, or incentivizing business to keep operations here in the U.S, as well as training local workers to meet the needs of these businesses. The grant opportunity was posted on March 18th, 2013, and proposals were due on May 31st, 2013. Up to 15 projects will be awarded grants for a period of 3 years, while some projects that receive EDA construction funding will receive the grants for 5 years instead.

More information can be found here:

National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI)

The National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI) is a proposed $1 billion investment by the Administration into Institutes for Manufacturing Innovation (IMI) that will each focus on separate interdisciplinary areas and also act as regional hubs. The Administration plans to seek funding from Congress for up to 15 of these IMIs. Although this funding has not yet been considered by Congress, the Administration has been using already available funding from agencies to launch four pilot Institutes – one in Additive Manufacturing, and three others now being offered by the DOD and DOE, as described below. These hubs are meant to help bridge the gap between research and implementation through the leveraging of both public and private capital. Each hub will act as an anchor on a regional scale and perform both research and demonstrations to further its network’s innovation capability, while involving key stakeholders on all levels of government and business, as well as universities. They will also offer facilities for R&D, engineering, and manufacturing capabilities that will encourage the formation and growth of small and medium size enterprises. EveryIMI will be led by a non-profit organization designed to link the stakeholders together and also take advantage of other already existing funding opportunities from the federal government. The leadership of each IMI will cooperate on aNetwork Leadership Council to develop consistent approaches to intellectual property, contracts, research metrics, and best practices.

The preliminary design of NNMI was issued in January 2013 by the Advanced Manufacturing National Program Office and can be found here:

Within the NNMI program, the following four Institutes have been launched or are imminent by this fall:

-National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute

The National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute (NAMII) is a pilot IMI created in 2012. It is based in Youngstown, Ohio and received an initial $30 million. Its members stretch across the Ohio-Pennsylvania-West Virginia ‘Tech Belt.’ Twelve (12) teams applied for this initial award offering. The Institute seeks to harness 3D Printing technology to advance production technology in a variety of fields. The DOD would like to produce components on site that would be otherwise too costly to ship, while the DOE envisions this technology leading to a 50% drop in production energy usage.

After the successful initiation of the pilot program NAMII based on responses to the 2012 solicitation, the Administration released an additional three Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOA). These are described below.

-Clean Energy/Power Electronics Manufacturing Innovation Institute

The Department of Energy will solicit proposals for a Clean Energy Manufacturing Innovation Institute focused on Power Electronics to drive the innovation, development, and adoption of next generation manufacturing technologies that will “increase energy productivity, improve product quality, reduce cost, waste, or pollution leading to increased domestic production capacity, jobs for American workers, and regional economic development.” The particular technology that the Institute will focus on is “wide bandgap (WBG) semiconductors for power electronic devices.” This technology could significantly reduce manufacturing energy costs and thereby improve production efficiencies, as well as being key to power grid modernization and capability. A letter of intent is due on July 11th, 2013 and the full application submission is due on August 29th, 2013.

The solicitation is here:

-Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute

The DOD through the U.S. Army proposed a Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation (DMDI) Institute in order to help small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) incorporate cyber technologies into factory designs. Firms are seeking price competitiveness through global supply chain processes rather than incorporating technological innovation into factory design at home. The Army seeks to help lower the risk of incorporating next generation technology by creating a factory demonstration site. The four core DMDI technology areas are Advanced Manufacturing Enterprise, Intelligent machines, Advanced Analysis, and Cyber-Physical Security. The DOD stands to gain a better working knowledge of how to incorporate these practice areas into its industrial base, which will in turn lower its costs and enhance product design capabilities.

The solicitation is here:

-Lightweight and Modern Metals Manufacturing Innovation (LM3I) Institute

The DOD through the Office of Naval Research will solicit proposals for the LM3I Institute in order to drive down scale up and certification costs in lightweight metals despite the necessary rigid performance standards necessary in the manufacturing process. The Institute will use an integrated approach towards incorporating systems engineering into the design process. This effort will build up the industrial base of lightweight metal suppliers in order to allow the “DOD to realize significant fuel reduction, increased payloads, and greater speed and agility of manned, unmanned, and soldier systems.” The four areas that the Institute will work in are: rapidly maturing and demonstrating production scale-up of existing, innovative, lightweight alloys; shortening the time necessary to design and integrate novel, affordable metals including lightweight alloys and third generation steels into new products; develop more affordable, competitive, automated manufacturing processes; and develop the tools, skills, and knowledge base within the materials design and manufacturing workforce to use an Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME) infrastructure.

The solicitation is here:

NIST (lab side) Centers of Excellence

NIST has requested funding in the FY 14 Budget to provide grants to four Centers of Excellence at single or multi-university centers for a period of 5 to 7 years. Each center is intended to provide collaboration space between NIST, industry, and academia focused on advancing basic and applied research in a measurement related field. The program has requested $20 million in the FY 14 Budget Request. These centers would be similar to current institutes that NIST has near its main campuses in Colorado and Maryland, the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI), and the Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research (IBBR) partnered with the Universities of Colorado and Maryland. Example topic areas NIST is interested in funding for these centers include: Advanced communications, Advanced manufacturing, Biomanufacturing, Cyberphysical systems, Forensic Science, Human-robotic integration, Materials modeling/design, Quantitative biology, and Telecommunications.

The News Release about the program can be found on the NIST website here:

MEP Manufacturing Technology Acceleration Centers (M-TACs)

NIST runs Manufacturing Extension Partnerships (MEP) in order to “act as a strategic advisor to promote business growth and connect manufacturers to public and private resources essential for increased competitiveness and profitability.” MEP has over 1300 technical experts employed in every state to provide a range of services in “technology acceleration, supplier development, sustainability, workforce and continuous improvement.”

The President’s FY 14 Budget Request asks for an additional $25 million to establish new MEP Manufacturing Technology Acceleration Centers (M-TACs) to provide assistance to small and mid-size manufacturers.

Information about MEP is here on the NIST site:

The MEP website is here:

An April 18th, 2013 article about MEP funding is here:

2. NSF Manufacturing-Related Program Offerings

Advanced Technology Education (ATE)

The ATE program originated in the Science and Advanced Technology Act of 1992 to inspire a larger, technically educated workforce. The ATE program is housed in the Division of Undergraduate Education at the NSF. More recently, the ATE expanded as an answer to the call of the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP) Steering Committee in 2012 to fund programs to assist two-year associate degree granting institutions to meet the technician skill gap in the manufacturing sector. The FY 2013 competitive grants totaled to $64 million and the FY 14 Request remains at $64 million.

A review of the ATE program produced in February 2014 can be found here:

The current award proposal deadline is October 17, 2013 and is available here:

Engineering Research Centers (ERCs)

The ERC program, from NSF’s Engineering Division, combines a pre-college and university program to “support the spectrum from transformational fundamental research to technological innovation and create pathways to success in engineering careers for diverse cadres of students from middle school to graduation with degrees in engineering.” A number of existing ERCs focus on advanced manufacturing, and the agency is interested in more of these. Proposals are reviewed in either an “open topic” track or a Nanosystems ERC (NERC) track. The FY 14 Request provides funding for three (3) new NERCs as well as funding supplements to the first set of NERCs funded in 2012. The ERC program will increase by $500,000 to a total of $70.5 million in FY 14.

The Preliminary Proposal deadline is July 30, 2013 and the Full Proposal deadline is February 12, 2014. The solicitation can be found here:

Industry/University Cooperative Research Centers (I/UCRCs)

Besides the ATEs and ERCs, the NSF also has a long-standing tradition of academic and industry collaboration in the I/UCRC Program. The program features “high-quality, industrially relevant fundamental research, strong industrial support of and collaboration in research and education, and direct transfer of university developed ideas, research results, and technology to U.S. industry to improve its competitive posture in world markets.” The NSF has a history of strong capital leveraging techniques, with industrial and other support totaling “10 to 15 times the NSF investment.” 60 I/UCRCs serve 900 faculty members, 1500 graduate students and 300 undergraduates across the “entire spectrum of current technological fields.” The broad interdisciplinary areas of these research activities include extensive work in advanced manufacturing technologies. The structure of these centers are designed in the “cooperative research model” to enable “direct technology transfer, bridging the gap that traditionally has kept U.S. industry from capitalizing fully and quickly on the fruits of research at American universities.”

More information about the I/UCRCs may be found here:

3. DOD Manufacturing Technology Program (ManTech) & Other Related Offerings

ManTech seeks to address high priority defense manufacturing needs, transition manufacturing R&D processes into production, attack pervasive manufacturing issues, and address manufacturing technology requirements beyond the normal risk of industry. The program ahs four Strategic thrusts are listed below. They can be found here:

• A responsive and balanced manufacturing technology investment portfolio to meet DoD requirements
• Active support for a highly connected and collaborative defense manufacturing enterprise
• Active support for a strong institutional focus on manufacturability and manufacturing process maturity
• Active support for a healthy, sufficient, and effective defense manufacturing infrastructure and workforce

ManTech houses funding through each of the services and a defense-wide section as well in Army ManTech, Navy ManTech, Air Force ManTech, Defense Logistic Agency (DLA) ManTech, and the OSD-managed Defense-Wide Manufacturing Science & Technology (DMS&T) Program. ManTech organizes its areas around the following four subpanels:

• Metals Processing & Fabrication
• Composites Processing & Fabrication
• Electronics Processing & Fabrication
• Advanced Manufacturing Enterprise

Centers of Excellence

ManTech runs Centers of Excellence that seek to transfer technology within a collaborative environment. It currently has centers in all of the areas listed below. More information about these may be found here:

• Benchmarking and Best Practices Center of Excellence (B2PCOE)

• Center for Naval Shipbuilding Technology (CNST)
• Composites Manufacturing Technology Center (CMTC)
• Electronics Manufacturing Productivity Facility (EMPF)
• Electro-Optics Manufacturing Technology Center (EOC)
• Energetics Manufacturing Technology Center (EMTC)
• Flexible Display Center (FDC)
• Institute for Manufacturing and Sustainment Technologies (iMAST)
• National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining (NCDMM)
• Navy Joining Center
• Navy Metalworking Center

2013 Industrial Base Innovation Fund (IBIF)

The IBIF has $30 million in authorized FY 13 funding and is run by the DMS&T Program. The fund seeks to “invest in manufacturing research and development that address defense industrial base shortfalls, especially those related to more urgent production requirements and diminishing defense manufacturing sources and material shortages, and a sustainable defense design team base.” Some of the money will go towards the DoD related NNMIs, but the FY 13 program funds a number of other technical areas as well, including:

• Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute
• Lightweight and Modern Metals Manufacturing Institute
• Laser Assisted Consolidation of Composites
• Affordable Radar
• Carbon Nanotube Wiring
• Readout Integrated Circuits

Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) Research

DARPA runs a Disruptive Manufacturing Technologies (DMT) area within the Defense Sciences Office to develop manufacturing capabilities that are “affordable at small volumes and with reduced delivery times.” The head of DMT is Dr. William Coblenz, who holds an MIT M.S. and Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering. His team’s work has specific objectives in nonautoclave manufacturing technology, digital fabrication of precision airfoils, and manufacturing process development.

Connecting American Manufacturing (CAM)

CAM was funded with FY 2011 funding to help the DoD find manufacturers with the capabilities that it needs while also making a smoother process when a manufacturer desires to conduct business with the DoD. It “seeks to address the mechanism by which spare parts are presented to the industrial base.” Lifecycle cost reduction and DoD-manufacturer communication are the focus of its work. CAM’s collaborative wiki can be found at this link:

4. Department of Energy, Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy (EERE) Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO)