SCIENCE

The National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (NCMS) presented its strategy to help revitalize American small and mid-sized manufacturers through advanced computer digital manufacturing during an event held in collaboration with Intersect360 Research and key industry players such as Microsoft and Intel in the Alliance for High Performance Digital Manufacturing (AHPDM), at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Center in Washington, DC.

NCMS unveiled a plan to develop a National Innovaton Network of high performance computing centers that would give the 300,000 small and medium-sized manufacturers access to digital manufacting technologies. The centers would faciliate innovation, competitveness and job growth, leveraging the wealth of supercomputing talent, ideas and facilities within our universities, national labs and industrial research centers.

"NCMS has created a plan to reach what many in the industry term 'The Missing Middle'," said Rick Jarman, president & CEO, NCMS. "Our Predictive Innovation Centers (PIC) will focus on the supply chain, allowing them access to digital manufacturing technologies affordably, helping them to compete globally and essentially transforming the way America builds."

As part of their strategy, NCMS has proposed the creation of a network of Predictive Innovation Centers (PIC) which would focus on the small and mid-sized manufacturer and would offer them the tools, training and expertise to leverage the power of advanced computational technologies. These centers will help to revitalize manufacturing by creating jobs and giving American manufacturers and especially the supply chain, a technological edge in global competitiveness. For decades, the largest US automotive and aerospace manufacturers have used supercomputing technologies to shorten time-to-market, improve product quality, and reduce costs through computer-aided design, digital modeling and simulation. In order to better understand how small and mid-sized manufacturers could more broadly adopt digital manufacturing process and supercomputing technologies, NCMS and Intersect360 Research conducted a study.

The data revealed that 80 percent of SMMs want more opportunity to experiment with advanced technologies, if they could do so at minimal risk and that 75 percent saw competitive value in digital manufacturing as studies show that early adopters have recorded 66 percent reductions in product design cycle time, and 98 percent reductions in cost for lab testing of new products. However, manufacturers typically encounter barriers not only with the cost of acquiring the computer hardware and software necessary to start or expand a digital manufacturing program, but also with the expertise to implement new technologies and validate their results against existing processes.

"The NCMS plan is simple and resonant, in that it responds to exactly what the SMMs have said they need," says Addison Snell, CEO of Intersect360 Research. "According to our study, US manufacturers specifically want this from an organization like NCMS rather than an academic institution or government agency. There is a sense of trust associated with a nonprofit whose stated mission is the enhancement of manufacturing in the United States."

The event agenda includes speakers from General Electric, Ace Clearwater Enterprises, Intersect360 Research, Microsoft and Intel as well as various government officials all speaking to the need for a wider adoption of digital manufacturing throughout the supply chain in order for US manufacturing to remain globally competitive.