September 19, 2012
The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) recently released a workshop summary on Making Value: Integrating Manufacturing, Design, and Innovation to Thrive in the Changing Global Economy. This report describes the opportunities that lie ahead at the intersection of innovation, design, and manufacturing while developing a new framework that can be used to turn the national dialog about “manufacturing” in a more productive and positive direction. The report also looks at the critical changes in education, business, and government that the advisory committee deemed necessary to take advantage of these opportunities.
The NAE Committee on Manufacturing, Design and Innovation (MDI) consists of approximately a dozen experts from industry, academia and government, appointed by Charles Vest, NAE President. NCMS Senior Vice President, Rebecca Taylor, was one of the advisors on the repot.
The committee advised the NAE regarding the planning and development of the program on MDI and worked on significant national issues posed by trends in MDI while helping to frame questions that the National Academies could more broadly investigate. In addition, the experts recommended topics for workshops, symposia and studies and provided feedback on Academy proposals around MDI.
The committee recommends that NAE develop a fast-track study looking at three areas:
1. Making value through holistic best practices: Develop a teachable system of best practices for making value by synthesizing exemplary case studies;
2. Establishing the ecosystem for future work: Describe future scenarios for the MDI ecosystem, how people work in this ecosystem, and the skills, education, infrastructure, and government policies that are needed to support this work; and
3. Making the US the ideal place to make value: Explain the necessary and sufficient conditions to make the US the ideal place to make value and provide recommendations to achieve this ideal.
The next steps are for the NAE to implement the recommendations and move toward a national discussion of manufacturing, design and innovation. A copy of the report is available at: http://books.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13504
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When it comes to testing a new line of trucks, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that automakers such as Ford aren’t afraid to be tough on their latest models. But separating the pounding the trucks can take from the test driver can get a bit tricky, which is why Ford has recently handed the keys over to robots instead of flesh-and-blood drivers.
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Last month’s news of 3D printers entering brick-and-mortar Staples stores may have represented a major step in mainstream commercialization of additive manufacturing tools, but in what is perhaps an even bigger step, online retail giant Amazon recently added a dedicated section of its site to 3D printers and supplies.
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As the U.S. manufacturing sector fights to stay competitive on a global scale, the issue of improving STEM education has been key. But in a recent study measuring how workers in STEM fields are putting their educations to use it was found that half didn't need a bachelor's degree.
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Chevrolet has added digital manufacturing technology to its arsenal. Abandoning clay for their latest Malibu, the automaker has turned to two types of additive manufacturing to meet their rapid prototyping needs.
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