An Assessment of the National Institute of Standards and Technology Measurement and Standards Laboratories
FISCAL YEAR 2002
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS
Washington, D.C.
www.nap.edu
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS
500 Fifth Street, N.W. Washington, DC 20001
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 Board and panels responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.
This study was supported by Contract No. SB1341-02-C-0004 between the National Academy of Sciences and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizations or agencies that provided support for the project.
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Board on Assessment of NIST Programs
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Copyright 2002 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
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BOARD ON ASSESSMENT OF NIST PROGRAMS
LINDA CAPUANO,
Honeywell,
Chair
ROBERT M. NOWAK,
Michigan Molecular Institute,
Vice Chair
DAVID C. BONNER,
Cabot Corporation
ROSS B. COROTIS,
University of Colorado at Boulder
HERWIG KOGELNIK,
Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies
THOMAS A. SAPONAS,
Agilent Technologies
SYED Z. SHARIQ,
Stanford University
Ex Officio Members
ROBERT A. ALTENKIRCH,
New Jersey Institute of Technology
JANET S. BAUM,
Health, Education & Research Associates, Inc.
ALAN CAMPION,
University of Texas, Austin
CONSTANCE J. CHANG-HASNAIN,
University of California, Berkeley
RICHARD A. CURLESS,
Cincinnati Machine, a UNOVA Company
MARVIN F. DeVRIES,
University of Wisconsin-Madison
JAMES ECONOMY,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
ALBERT M. ERISMAN,
Institute for Business, Technology, and Ethics
JANET S. FENDER,
Air Force Research Laboratory
DAVID W. JOHNSON, JR.,
Agere Systems (retired)
KENNETH O. MacFADDEN,
Honeywell, Inc.
DUNCAN T. MOORE,
University of Rochester
LORI S. NYE,
Silicon Genesis, Inc.
TONY SCOTT,
General Motors Corporation
JAMES W. SERUM,
SciTek Ventures
Board Staff
DOROTHY ZOLANDZ, Director
ELIZABETH L. GROSSMAN, Senior Program Officer
BARBARA JONES, Administrative Assistant
Preface
This assessment of the technical quality and relevance of the programs of the Measurement and Standards Laboratories of the National Institute of Standards and Technology is the work of the 165members of the National Research Council’s (NRC’s) Board on Assessment of NIST Programs and its panels. These individuals were chosen by the NRC for their technical expertise, their practical experience in running research programs, and their knowledge of industry’s needs in basic measurements and standards. Each has given of his or her time without remuneration to participate in this assessment process.
I am continually impressed with the amount of time and energy that these review participants are willing to give to this assessment process. These individuals have taken fully six to seven days away from their jobs, on average, to participate in this assessment. Their willingness to do so speaks to the importance they attach to the NIST mission and to their commitment to the idea of striving for improved performance through performance measurement. I wish to thank the expert members of the Board and panels for their participation in and dedication to this process. Without their willingness to contribute their time and expertise, NIST would be deprived of a valuable management tool.
I am also impressed with the responsiveness of NIST to the findings of the Board and its panels. Most NIST managers and scientists have treated the assessment process as an opportunity to gain fresh insight into their programs and customers and have modified their plans and programs according to these insights. It is reassuring to see a federal agency so committed to program excellence and responsiveness to customer needs. The success of this assessment is dependent upon NIST cooperation and receptiveness to the inquiries and activities of the Board and panels. We thank NIST staff for the time spent in meeting with Board and panel members, as well as the time spent in preparing background information for them.
In carrying out this assessment, the Board and panels sought to meet the specific charge given by NIST and reproduced in Appendix A. Briefly, this charge calls for the Board and panels to address:
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The technical merit of the laboratory programs relative to the state of the art worldwide;
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The effectiveness with which the laboratory programs are carried out and the results disseminated to their customers;
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The relevance of the laboratory programs to the needs of their customers; and
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The ability of the laboratories’ facilities, equipment, and human resources to enable the laboratories to fulfill their mission and meet their customers’ needs.
I hope that the readers of this report find it to be fully responsive to the charge and that those with responsibility for oversight of NIST programs will regard this report as a useful tool in efforts to continually improve the programs of that respected institution.
Linda Capuano, Chair
Board on Assessment of NIST Programs
Acknowledgment of Reviewers
This report has been reviewed by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise, in accordance with procedures approved by the National Research Council’s 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 deliberative process. We wish to thank the following individuals for their review of this report:
Marylyn Bennett, International SEMATECH and Texas Instruments,
Eric F. Burnett, Pennsylvania State University,
Radford Byerly, Jr., Boulder, Colorado,
Francois J. Castaing, Castaing & Associates,
Josephine Cheng, IBM Santa Teresa Laboratory,
Gregory R. Choppin, Florida State University,
Uma Chowdhry, DuPont Company,
Marc D. Donohue, Johns Hopkins University,
David A. Dornfeld, University of California, Berkeley,
William Eddy, Carnegie Mellon University,
Richard J. Farris, University of Massachusetts,
Placid M. Ferreira, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
John Fishell, U.S. Navy,
John W. Fisher, Lehigh University,
David W. Green, Albion College,
James C. Holste, Texas A&M University,
Larry J. Howell, General Motors (retired),
James U. Lemke, Recording Physics, Inc.,
J. David Litster, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Robert Mazur, Solid State Measurements, Inc.,
John F. O’Hanlon, University of Arizona,
C. Kumar N. Patel, Pranalytica, Inc.,
Alton D. Patton, Associated Power Analysts, Inc.,
Rose A. Ryntz, Visteon Automotive Systems,
Kozo Saito, University of Kentucky,
Arthur W. Sleight, Oregon State University,
Rao R. Tummala, Georgia Institute of Technology,
James Waldo, Sun Microsystems,
Ronald L. Walsworth, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and
Julia R. Weertman, Northwestern University.
Although the individuals 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 Norman Hackerman, the Robert A. Welch Foundation. Appointed by the National Research Council, he was 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.