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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2013. 21st Century Manufacturing: The Role of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18448.
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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
Committee Chairman

Charles W. Wessner
Editor

NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
                         OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES

THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS
Washington, D.C.
www.nap.edu

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2013. 21st Century Manufacturing: The Role of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18448.
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THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS 500 Fifth Street NW 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 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.

International Standard Book Number 13: 978-0-309-29117-0

International Standard Book Number 10: 0-309-29117-8

Additional copies of this report are available for sale from the National Academies Press, 500 Fifth Street, NW, Keck 360, Washington, DC 20001; (800) 624-6242 or (202) 334-3313; http://www.nap.edu/.

Copyright 2013 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2013. 21st Century Manufacturing: The Role of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18448.
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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.

The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964, under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. It is autonomous in its administration and in the selection of its members, sharing with the National Academy of Sciences the responsibility for advising the federal government. The National Academy of Engineering also sponsors engineering programs aimed at meeting national needs, encourages education and research, and recognizes the superior achievements of engineers. Dr. C. D. Mote, Jr., is president of the National Academy of Engineering.

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.

www.national-academies.org

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2013. 21st Century Manufacturing: The Role of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18448.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2013. 21st Century Manufacturing: The Role of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18448.
×

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

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2013. 21st Century Manufacturing: The Role of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18448.
×

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

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2013. 21st Century Manufacturing: The Role of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18448.
×

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.

Page viii Cite
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2013. 21st Century Manufacturing: The Role of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18448.
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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

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2013. 21st Century Manufacturing: The Role of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18448.
×
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2013. 21st Century Manufacturing: The Role of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18448.
×

Preface

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

________________

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.

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2013. 21st Century Manufacturing: The Role of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18448.
×

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

________________

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.

Page xiii Cite
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2013. 21st Century Manufacturing: The Role of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18448.
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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

________________

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.

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2013. 21st Century Manufacturing: The Role of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18448.
×

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
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The Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) - a program of the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology - 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 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.

21st Century Manufacturing seeks to generate a better understanding of the operation, achievements, and challenges of the MEP program in its mission to support, strengthen, and grow U.S. manufacturing. This report identifies and reviews similar national programs from abroad in order to draw on foreign practices, funding levels, and accomplishments as a point of reference and discusses current needs and initiatives in light of the global focus on advanced manufacturing,

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