Moving Manufacturing Technologies to the Global Marketplace

As we shift from a defense-oriented to a civilian-oriented technology base and prepare for the 21st century, America has a window of opportunity to develop and apply advanced manufacturing technologies to improve the competi- tiveness of our manufacturing industries. By properly focusing and coordinating our national research and development effort, we can enhance the ability of U.S. manufacturers to compete in domestic and international markets.

The Clinton Administration's technology policy reflects the reality that both American industry and government have underinvested in manufacturing technology, even though a strong manufacturing capability, like a highly skilled national workforce, is a critical determinant of the Nation's global economic competitiveness. In 1992, the Federal investment in commercially-oriented relevant manufacturing R&D represented less than 2 percent of the Federal R&D budget, significantly less than the shares allocated by other industrialized nations.

Advanced Manufacturing Technologies

The Administration is crafting a government-wide strategy to speed the development and application of advanced manufacturing technologies. The Com- mittee on Civilian Industrial Technologies, chaired by the Under Secretary of Commerce for Technology, is completing plans for a coordinated interagency effort to promote:

Within Federal science and technology agencies, manufacturing research will receive greater attention. The Administration championed, and Congress approved, a sizable FY 1994 budget increase to deepen and broaden the laboratory, competitive-grants, and manufacturing extension programs of the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology. A portion of the 21-percent increase in funding for NIST's intramural research (to $226 million) will be used to increase the agency's advanced manufacturing research.

At NIST and other Federal laboratories, information technology and its applications will be a major focus of manufacturing research. Plans call for transforming NIST's Automated Manufacturing Research Facility, a factory-like laboratory for developing the technology for flexible computer-integrated manufacturing, into a national testbed for the network technologies and proto- cols needed for virtual manufacturing enterprises. The facility will become a node in an experimental, electronic manufacturing network linked to counter- part research facilities in companies, government laboratories, and universities.

In March, an industry-led, federally facilitated effort achieved initial international acceptance of a universal standardized system for electronic exchanges of technical information on products and manufacturing processes. The digital format, called Standard for the Exchange of Product (STEP) model data, was approved as a draft standard by the International Organization for Standardization; after a 6-month comment period, it will become an inter- national standard. Wide-scale adoption of a standardized, digital format for describing part information would eliminate many of the barriers that prevent units within companies and groups of companies from working as teams on design and manufacturing projects.

In September, Ford Motor Co.'s Powertrain Operations in Dearborn, MI, and the Department of Energy's Allied/Signal Kansas City Plant jointly designed and built an engine part using the STEP standard. The Departments of Commerce and Defense now are playing key supporting roles in the drive to develop standards that enable agile manufacturing.

DOE has taken several actions to make extensive in-house manu- facturing facilities available to U.S. industry. Much of the advanced equipment that once was restricted to classified personnel can now be used by industry, university, and other government researchers. For example, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory's once highly secretive Y-12 plant made components for nuclear warheads and optical components for the former Strategic Defense Initiative. Now, outside researchers have access to one Y-12 plant's concurrent engineering center, prototyping facility, and ultraprecision manufacturing equipment that were formerly reserved for military work. Additional efforts to enhance industrial competitiveness are being planned as the Y-12 plant is fully converted into a Center for Defense and Manufacturing Technology.

DOE is pursuing a wide range of initiatives to make its manufacturing technologies, capabilities, and know-how available to U.S. industry. In addition to contracted R&D work in support of the Department's defense and energy missions, DOE is stressing cooperative work with individual firms and with teams of companies, making available to industry its specialized centers of manufacturing expertise, and collaborating with Federal and State agencies in efforts to enhance the capabilities and competitive performance of small and medium-sized manufacturers. Currently, DOE has under way or in negotiation more than 115 advanced manufacturing cooperative projects involving more than 60 companies. Over the life of the projects, the level of effort is expected to exceed $270 million.

Over the past 9 months, the Defense Department's shift to foster a dual-use manufacturing capability has gained momentum, propelled by the Administration's Technology Reinvestment Project and planned reform of an acquisition process that discouraged integration of defense and commercial technology-development efforts (see page 51). For example, the Advanced Re- search Projects Agency (formerly the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), long successful in nurturing progress in the development of technolo- gies that have enabled the Nation to maintain a superior military, is under- taking an ambitious program to speed the development of dual-use technologies in strategically important areas. Research on dual-use technology accounts for a substantial portion of the agency's $2.2 billion budget.

ARPA allocated about $600 million for manufacturing-related research during FY 1994. It is investing its resources to drive advances in materials and materials processing, production technology, design-process integration, agile manufacturing, and enterprise integration.

The National Science Foundation and ARPA are running a joint program to support agile manufacturing projects led by industry and hosted by a university or not-for-profit institute. Award announcements are expected early in 1994.

Manufacturing Extension Partnership

Working with a growing roster of Federal agencies and laboratories and State and local organizations, the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology is moving ahead in its plans to build a nationwide network of electronically linked manufacturing extension centers. As envisioned in the Administration's Technology for America's Economic Growth, A New Direction to Build Economic Strength, this Manufacturing Extension Partner- ship, or MEP, will provide a coordinated mechanism for delivering technical and business support services to the nation's 350,000 small and medium-sized manufacturers.

These firms employ some 6 million Americans, supply components to U.S. makers of higher-value-added products such as computers and automo- biles and are essential to the health of regional, State, and local economies. Yet, a sizable fraction of these critically important elements of the manufac- turing "food chain" have been slow to adopt modern, performance-enhancing equipment, production methods, and organizational techniques, leaving them ill- prepared to meet the challenges posed by foreign competitors that are exploit- ing the advantages of modern technology.

Through the MEP, the Administration is following through on its pledge to establish a nationwide network of 100 manufacturing extension centers by 1997 to assist manufacturers to modernize their production capabili- ties. Concrete steps taken thus far to build this vital component of the Nation's manufacturing infrastructure are described below.

NIST designed scale-up plans that allow the MEP to expand smoothly and to maintain both high-quality standards and close regional and local linkages.

The deployment portion of the Administration's Technology Reinvestment Project includes $87 million for manufacturing extension programs (see page 51). Aimed at improving the quality, productivity, and performance of small manufacturing firms, the industrial outreach programs approved by the Defense Department-managed TRP will speed development of the nationwide MEP network.

As requested by the President, Congress has approved a two-thirds increase in the MEP budget, raising it to $30.2 million in FY 1994.

Linkages have been formed recently between the MEP and Federal agencies with roles to play in the delivery of technical assistance and workforce training and small business support services. Alliances with the:

Implementation of TECNET, an electronic dissemination and access system, has begun, initially linking the NIST MTCs and client firms. TECNET will be the backbone of the MEP electronic network, which will provide manufacturers with easily accessible technology and business-support services.

The Departments of Commerce and Energy now are expanding and diversifying already-existing collaborative efforts to strengthen industrial out-reach efforts, including a toll-free number that provides U.S. machine-tool manufacturers with access to NIST and DOE manufacturing experts. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Y-12 plant provides technical assistance to the Southeast MTC, and it has a field staff that works with Southeast manufactur- ers and responds to telephone inquiries. This year alone, Y-12 plant personnel have responded to about 500 requests for help.

At Sandia National Laboratories, an electronic technical-assistance system will soon go on line. Called the Technology Information Environment for Industry, or TIE-In, the system will contain technical databases, technology tutorials, analytical tools, and other resources. It also will provide industrial users with access to high-performance computers.

Manufacturing Competitiveness Initiative

The Department of Commerce plans to begin an annual strategic assessment of the health of the U.S. manufacturing base. This assessment will characterize the comparative strength of U.S. manufacturing, measuring the extent to which U.S. industry has adopted modern manufacturing technologies and modern workforce and organizational practices. An understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of U.S. manufacturing will help to direct government resources and guide the development of legal and regulatory policies.

U.S.-Japan Manufacturing Technology Fellowship Program

With Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry, the Commerce Department initiated, in January, an innovative program to place U.S. engineers in Japanese manufacturing firms for up to 1 year. The goal of the Manufac- turing Technology Fellowship Program is to help U.S. engineers to learn Japanese manufacturing practices firsthand and to promote long-term profes- sional exchanges with the Japanese. More than 60 Japanese firms have signed on as host organizations. Numbering 30, the first fellows will begin working for their host companies in February 1994 after a thorough orientation and training session. An agreement reached with the Society of Manufacturing Engineers provides additional private-sector involvement.

Electronics

Electronic devices, components, and systems are vital "building-block" technologies of modern industry and commerce. The public and private sectors must devote increased effort to maintaining U.S. leadership in those areas of electronics where it remains strong. They also must strive to recover lost ground in established and emerging technology areas dominated by foreign industry.

Comparative competitive assessments indicate that the United States lags well behind the competition in 13 critical electronic technologies, including optical information storage, multichip packaging systems, and display technology.

Two key thrusts of the Defense Department's dual-use technology strategy information technology and advanced manufacturing focus directly on issues critical to the health of the U.S. electronics sector. The ability to perform massive amounts of computing equivalent to that done on today's supercomputers on machines scaled for use by individuals or by individual enterprises will revolutionize information processing. Over the next 5 years, new scalable computer architectures will make extremely powerful software applications available to users over a broad range of computers. Computers with this common software will enable a wide range of users to analyze problems that now require the most specialized of systems. A new Defense Department initiative will help to establish a new computing paradigm based on scalable, affordable systems, from workstations to supercomputers with 200 times the capabilities of today's machines.

A second major R&D activity will establish an all-optical network testbed operating at 100 gigabit (billion bits) per second by 1995 or 10 times faster than the commercial networks that will then be available. The network testbed will be the foundation of an information superhighway that can provide new commercial opportunities to U.S. manufacturing and service firms.

The dual-use thrust in advanced manufacturing will emphasize multichip modules, a technology offering the potential to interconnect dozens of "bare" silicon chips in a single package no larger than the packages that now hold individual integrated circuits. At the system level, the benefits of this technology could translate into a 70-percent reduction in volume and weight, a doubling of performance capabilities, and a tenfold increase in reliability. The Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency is investing more than $75 million annually to help develop a viable domestic merchant multichip module infrastructure, enabling the United States to compete strongly in a new industry anticipated to have a multibillion dollar global market by the end of this decade.

Other actions in the electronics R&D area taken during the Administration's first 9 months include:

Realizing the Opportunities of the Information Age