ME June 2015

A SPECIAL REPORT

A Q&A with the Leaders of the US Manufacturing Hubs

ME: Why does the United States need the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation? Brown: After more than a century of dominance in manufacturing, the US manufacturing business climate was under substantial pressure from competition around the globe. As manufacturing left US shores, the expertise and know-how to innovate that manufacturing soon fol- lowed – over time the structures within industry and government to support that innovation became disconnected, stag- nant and ineffi cient. The Great Recession shined a bright light on the needs of U.S. manufacturing to invest in advanced pro- cesses and new technologies. ME: Why should the US government help commercialize manufacturing tech- nologies? Bartles: These problems are too big for any one company to solve by themselves. You’re going to have to come up with a model that pulls together the right resources. Morris: These projects are too risky for industry to fund by themselves. It helps to have a combination of public- private money. ME: Why is this a good deal for

taxpayers? Brown: Institutes have been funded initially with seed money from federal government sources and industry match- ing dollars. Over the long-term, the institutes will have to be self-sustaining. If there is demand for their services in the marketplace, they can survive and thrive. The structure of these institutes implies a risk-sharing arrangement that is good for industry and good for the country. New technology investment can be expensive and there is no guarantee of success. This is a smart leverage of a nation’s intellectual and fi nancial assets. ME: Tell me what your particular institute does and why it’s important? Will

8 AdvancedManufacturing.org | June 2015 Larry Brown,

Executive Director of LIFT (Lightweight Innovations for Tomorrow), in Detroit.

Ed Morris,

Executive Director of America Makes, in Youngstown, OH.

Dean Bartles,

Executive Director of DMDII (Digital Manufacturing & Design Innovation Institute), in Chicago.

the various institutes collaborate on their technologies in any way? Morris: We’re chartered for 3D print- ing. Game-changing is a totally overused word, but it’s not when it comes to addi- tive manufacturing. It has the potential to be benefi cial to every application you can think of. … Brown: Lightweight metals are an enabling technology for many products in the transportation and defense sectors. The ability to lightweight a vehicle reduces its energy or fuel consumption. The chal- lenge is understanding how these metals perform across a variety of manufacturing processes and how those processes or equipment might need to be modifi ed to accommodate the new properties. This is a grand challenge faced by all manufactur- ing sectors. Kekas: Wide bandgap semiconduc- tors technology. It’s time to bring it out of the labs and make it real … Wide bandgap power electronics have the abil- ity to shave two percentage points off the world’s electric energy usage. It’s a huge savings. We could make the world far more effi cient while enabling new applica- tions. … It’s not an easy task, but nothing worth doing is easy to do. Bartles: We’re looking at cutting- edge digital technologies that are fueling advanced manufacturing – intelligent machining, modeling and simulation, the cloud. Cybersecurity is a major, major concern. ME: How optimistic are you that the US can catch up in manufacturing? Brown: A coordinated and optimized

Dennis Kekas, Interim Executive

Director of Power America in Raleigh, NC.

approach to advanced manufacturing is key to unleashing American ingenuity in a productive and targeted fashion. LIFT has no doubt about the ability of US fi rms to dominate global manufacturing. This once-in-a-generation investment in manufacturing is the catalyst.

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