21st Century Manufacturing
The Role of the Manufacturing
Extension Partnership Program
Committee on 21st Century Manufacturing:
The Role of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program
of the National Institute of Standards and Technology
Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy
Policy and Global Affairs
Philip P. Shapira |
Charles W. Wessner |
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS
Washington, D.C.
www.nap.edu
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NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.
This study was supported by: Contract/Grant No. SB134106Z0011, Task Order #9, between the National Academy of Sciences and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizations or agencies that provided support for the project.
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THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES
Advisers to the Nation on Science, Engineering, and Medicine
The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Upon the authority of the charter granted to it by the Congress in 1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires it to advise the federal government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Ralph J. Cicerone is president of the National Academy of Sciences.
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The Institute of Medicine was established in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences to secure the services of eminent members of appropriate professions in the examination of policy matters pertaining to the health of the public. The Institute acts under the responsibility given to the National Academy of Sciences by its congressional charter to be an adviser to the federal government and, upon its own initiative, to identify issues of medical care, research, and education. Dr. Harvey V. Fineberg is president of the Institute of Medicine.
The National Research Council was organized by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy’s purposes of furthering knowledge and advising the federal government. Functioning in accordance with general policies determined by the Academy, the Council has become the principal operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in providing services to the government, the public, and the scientific and engineering communities. The Council is administered jointly by both Academies and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Ralph J. Cicerone and Dr. C. D. Mote, Jr., are chair and vice chair, respectively, of the National Research Council.
Committee on 21st Century Manufacturing:
The Role of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program of the National Institute of Standards and Technology*
Philip P. Shapira, Chair
Professor of Management, Innovation and Policy
Director, Manchester Institute of Innovation Research
Manchester Business School
University of Manchester
and
Professor, School of Public Policy
Director, Georgia Tech Program in Science, Technology and Innovation Policy
Georgia Institute of Technology
Edward Breiner
President & CEO
Schramm, Inc.
Mary L. Good (NAE)
Dean Emeritus, Donaghey College of Engineering and Information Technology
Special Advisor to the Chancellor for Economic Development
University of Arkansas at Little Rock
James Griffith
President & CEO
The Timken Company
Robert James
President
Stoneleigh Strategies Inc.
Ginger Lew
Managing Director
Enduring Hydro
Deborah J. Nightingale (NAE)
Professor of the Practice of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Engineering Systems
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Luis M. Proenza
President
University of Akron
Paul K. Wright (NAE)
Director
Center for Information Research in the Interest of Society
A. Martin Berlin Chair in Mechanical Engineering
University of California, Berkeley
*As of September 2013
PROJECT STAFF
Charles W. Wessner
Study Director
McAlister T. Clabaugh
Program Officer
Sujai J. Shivakumar
Senior Program Officer
David E. Dierksheide
Program Officer
CONSULTANTS
Robin Gaster
Innovation Competititons LLC
Thomas R. Howell
Consultant
David B. Watters
Global Advantage Consulting Group, Inc.
Jan Youtie
Georgia Institute of Technology
For the National Research Council (NRC), this project was overseen by the Board on Science, Technology and Economic Policy (STEP), a standing board of the NRC established by the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering and the Institute of Medicine in 1991. The mandate of the Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy is to advise federal, state, and local governments and inform the public about economic and related public policies to promote the creation, diffusion, and application of new scientific and technical knowledge to enhance the productivity and competitiveness of the U.S. economy and foster economic prosperity for all Americans. The STEP Board and its committees marshal research and the expertise of scholars, industrial managers, investors, and former public officials in a wide range of policy areas that affect the speed and direction of scientific and technological change and their contributions to the growth of the U.S. and global economies. Results are communicated through reports, conferences, workshops, briefings, and electronic media subject to the procedures of the National Academies to ensure their authoritativeness, independence, and objectivity. The members of the STEP Board* and the NRC staff are listed below:
Paul L. Joskow, Chair
President
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
Ernst R. Berndt
Louis E. Seley Professor in Applied Economics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Jeff Bingaman
Former U.S. Senator, New Mexico U.S. Senate
Ellen Dulberger
Managing Partner
Ellen Dulberger Enterprises, LLC
Alan M. Garber (IOM)
Provost
Harvard University
Ralph E. Gomory (NAS/NAE)
Research Professor
Stern School of Business
New York University
John L. Hennessy (NAS/NAE)
President
Stanford University
William H. Janeway
Managing Director and Senior Advisor
Warburg Pincus, LLC
Richard K. Lester
Japan Steel Industry Professor
Head, Nuclear Science and Engineering
Founding Director, Industrial Performance Center
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
*As of August 2013.
David T. Morgenthaler
Founder
Morgenthaler Ventures
Luis M. Proenza
President
University of Akron
William J. Raduchel
Independent Investor and Director
Kathryn L. Shaw
Ernest C. Arbuckle Professor of Economics
Graduate School of Business
Stanford University
Laura D'Andrea Tyson
S.K. and Angela Chan Professor of Global Management
Haas School of Business
University of California-Berkeley
Harold R. Varian
Chief Economist
Google Inc.
Alan Wm. Wolff
Senior Counsel
McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP
STEP STAFF
Stephen A. Merrill
Executive Director
Paul T. Beaton
Program Officer
McAlister T. Clabaugh
Program Officer
Aqila A. Coulthurst
Program Coordinator
Charles W. Wessner
Program Director
David E. Dierksheide
Program Officer
Sujai J. Shivakumar
Senior Program Officer
Contents
1. The Structure and Role of MEP
2. U.S. Manufacturing in Global Context
4. Development of MEP Center Metrics
5. MEP Center Performance Measures and Evaluations of Program Outcomes
6. New Approach: Next Generation Strategy
7. Foreign Programs to Support Applied Research and Manufacturing
8. Findings and Recommendations
A1 Canada’s Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP)
A2 Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft: The German Model of Applied Research
A3 Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute: A Cradle of Future Industries
Manufacturing strength remains tightly linked to the innovative potential and competitiveness of nations. “In many sectors, innovative methods and ideas are generated and perfected through the process of making things. In the recent Report to the President on Ensuring American Leadership in Advanced Manufacturing, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) and the President’s Innovation and Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC) emphasized the critical importance of advanced manufacturing in driving knowledge production and innovation in the United States.1 Manufacturing companies in the United States are responsible for over two-thirds of the industrial research and development (R&D), employing the majority of domestic scientists and engineers. Furthermore, manufacturing R&D is a primary source of innovative new service-sector technologies, so that its benefits reach beyond the manufacturing arena.”2
The Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP)—a program of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)—has sought for more than two decades to strengthen American manufacturing. It is a national network of affiliated manufacturing extension centers and field offices located throughout all fifty states and Puerto Rico. Funding for MEP centers comes from a combination of federal, state, local, and private resources. Centers work directly with manufacturing firms in their state or sub-state region. MEP centers provide expertise, services, and assistance directed toward improving growth, supply chain positioning, leveraging emerging technologies, improving manufacturing processes, work
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1President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, 2011, “Report to the President on Ensuring American Leadership in Advanced Manufacturing.” Access at
<http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/pcastadvanced-manufacturing-june2011.pdf>.
2The current status of U.S. manufacturing is discussed in detail by a new report by the Department of Commerce, written in consultation with the National Economic Council. This report argues that, despite recent declines, manufacturing remains a vital part of the U.S. economy. U.S. Department of Commerce, “The Competitiveness and Innovative Capacity of the United States,” Washington, DC, January 2012.
force training, and the application and implementation of information in client companies through direct assistance provided by center staff and from partner organizations and third-party consultants.
Given the importance of innovation to economic growth and competitiveness, MEP today is seeking to evolve beyond its traditional “technology push” mission to increase the innovative capacity of the nation’s manufacturers.
THE STEP BOARD’S RESEARCH ON INNOVATION AND COMPETITIVENESS
The National Research Council, under the auspices of its Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy (STEP), has since 1991 undertaken a program of activities to improve policymakers' understandings of the interconnections of science, technology, and economic policy and their importance for the American economy and its international competitive position. The Board's activities have contributed to increased policy recognition of the importance of technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship to economic growth. This work is in many ways congruent with economic growth theory, which emphasizes the role of technology creation in the generation of significant growth externalities.3 In addition, many economists have recognized the limitations of traditional trade theory, particularly with respect to the reality of imperfect international competition. Public-private partnerships are increasingly recognized for their contributions to the commercialization of state and national investments in research and development. Such partnerships help address the challenges associated with the transition of research into products ready for the marketplace.4
One important element of STEP analysis has concerned the growth and impact of foreign technology programs. 5 U.S. competitors have launched substantial programs to support new technologies, small firm development, innovative production at large companies, and consortia among large and small firms to strengthen national and regional positions in strategic sectors. Some governments overseas have chosen to provide public support to innovation to overcome the market imperfections apparent in their national innovation systems. They believe that the rising costs and risks associated with new
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3National Research Council, Enhancing Productivity Growth in the Information Age, D. W. Jorgenson and C. Wessner, eds., Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2007.
4National Research Council, Government-Industry Partnerships for the Development of New Technologies: Summary Report, C. Wessner, ed., Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2003.
5For a review of the challenges and opportunities faced by the United States in the face of unprecedented global competition for developing, commercializing, and manufacturing the next generation of technologies, see National Research Council, Rising to the Challenge: U.S. Innovation Policy for the Global Economy, C. Wessner and A. Wm. Wolff, eds., Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2012.
Statement of Task
An ad hoc committee will carry out an evaluation of the operation, achievements, and challenges of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) program at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The committee will hold a series of fact-finding workshops and commission research papers and case studies to review and document the program's current achievements, challenges, and new opportunities; identify and review similar national programs from abroad in order to draw on foreign practices, funding levels, and accomplishments as a point of reference; and discuss current needs and initiatives in light of the global focus on advanced manufacturing.
One workshop summary will be prepared in the course of the study. The committee will develop findings and recommendations to improve program operations and impact for inclusion in the committee's final consensus report.
potentially high-payoff technologies, and the growing global dispersal of technical expertise, underscore the need for national R&D programs to support new and existing high-technology firms within their borders.6
THE MEP STUDY
In 2011, MEP requested the National Academies’ Board on Science, Technology, and Economy Policy to undertake a review of MEP. As noted in the Statement of Task, this study seeks to generate a better understanding of the operation, achievements, and challenges of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership program in its mission to support, strengthen, and grow U.S. manufacturing.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
On behalf of the National Academies, we would like to express our appreciation for the many contributions to the study. We would particularly like to express our thanks to Robin Gaster for his contributions to the Committee’s analysis of the MEP and to Thomas Howell for his contributions to our understanding of a broad range of foreign programs and to David Watters for his advancement of the Committee’s understanding of the Canadian Industrial Research Assistance Program. The Committee would also like to acknowledge the many contributions of our foreign colleagues who provided invaluable insights into the goals, structure, operations, and achievements of the manufacturing support programs reviewed in the course of the study. Without
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6For a review of global initiatives in this regard, see National Research Council, Rising to the Challenge: U.S. Innovation Policy for the Global Economy, op. cit.
their cooperation and enthusiastic support we would not have been able to carry out the study. Similarly, we would like to acknowledge the many contributions of the leadership and staff of the MEP centers who spoke at the conference, participated in our workshops, hosted our site visits, and enabled us to draw on their insights and experience. We would also like to express our thanks to the project staff, notably Sujai Shivakumar, who devoted his energy and experience to refining the report and supporting the review process, to McAlister Clabaugh and David Dawson, who played key roles in organizing, and in the case of Mr. Clabaugh, participating in the multiple missions abroad and the many off-site meetings around the country, while contributing directly to the preparation of the final report.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF REVIEWERS
This report has been reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise, in accordance with procedures approved by the National Academies’ Report Review Committee. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the institution in making its published report as sound as possible and to ensure that the report meets institutional standards for objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the process.
We wish to thank the following individuals for their review of this report: Timothy Bartik, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research; David Bodde, Clemson University; Gary Cowger, GLC Ventures, LLC; George Dieter, University of Maryland; Dietmar Harhoff, Institute for Innovation Research, Technology Management and Entrepreneurship; Christopher Hill, George Mason University; Jennie Hwang, H-Technologies Group; Ron Jarmin, U.S. Census Bureau; Robert Kill, Enterprise Minnesota; Sridhar Kota, University of Michigan; Jean-Michel LeRoux, Institut Carnot Centrale Supélec; Thomas Mahoney, West Virginia University; Elizabeth Reynolds, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Gavriel Salvendy, Purdue University.
Although the reviewers listed above have provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the conclusions or recommendations, nor did they see the final draft of the report before its release. The review of this report was overseen by Irwin Feller, Pennsylvania State University and Robert Frosch, Harvard University. Appointed by the National Academies, they were responsible for making certain that an independent examination of this report was carried out in accordance with institutional procedures and that all review comments were carefully considered.
Responsibility for the final content of this report rests entirely with the authoring committee and the institution.
Philip Shapira | Charles W. Wessner |