Advanced Manufacturing vs. COVID-19
Immediately recognizing that advanced manufacturing can contribute to solutions for the pandemic, in March 2020 America Makes developed a plan to team up with the FDA, NIH, and VA and leverage additive manufacturing to fight COVID-19. Other institutes followed with their own projects supporting the nation.
In addition, NIST awarded $12.3 million in grants to five Manufacturing USA institutes to support high-impact projects for pandemic response, with funding authorized by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act signed by the President.
The opportunities extended by the institutes brought together government entities and the private sector to rapidly develop innovative projects that contributed to our nation’s COVID-19 response efforts. These projects:
- Expanded the production of needed medical countermeasures
- Provided workforce training that responded to changing conditions
- Increased testing capacity to track workplace infections
- Helped manufacturers prepare for the future in the face of shifting economic realities
Along with these CARES-funded projects, Manufacturing USA, the manufacturing innovation institutes and the federal agencies that sponsor them — the Departments of Commerce, Defense, and Energy — as well as six additional partner agencies, have committed resources and facilitated coordination among institute members and communities to quickly pivot and augment their programmatic efforts in response to the pandemic crisis.
Here are some highlights from these advanced manufacturing efforts aimed at aiding the United States in its fight against COVID-19.
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The Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), through the CARES Act, provided funding to the ARM Institute to collaborate with Wilder Systems to develop this technology.
The ARM Institute is leading the way to a future where people and robots work together to respond to the nation’s greatest challenges and to...
Today’s supply chains and manufacturing operations are global, highly efficient, and carefully tuned. At the same time, the COVID-19 black-swan event has demonstrated painfully that they are also fragile and lacking transparency at times when faced with unexpected disturbances. The various interruptions led to a shortage of essential goods, ranging...
Remember in-person meetings? A year ago, would you have thought our world, our homes and offices would be upended and changed so rapidly? Seemingly overnight businesses were adapting to a new reality. We at U.S. Food and Drug Administration adapted as well – we had to. Our mission is so critical, we couldn’t fall behind because too much was, and...
By this time next year, I predict Americans will covet borosilicate glass in the same way they do N95 masks. Because this durable and heat-resistant glass is what’s needed to make vials — vials that hold the vaccines against COVID-19.
We’ve known for months that a surge in demand is coming, yet the vast majority — 70% to 90% — of medical glass is...
Lifesaving vaccines and medicines. Working with a team. The ability to grow and develop. You'll find all of this and more in the biopharma manufacturing industry.
While many people think biopharma jobs are for those with science degrees, there are opportunities for workers with educational backgrounds of all types. People from all walks of life and...
Despite being universally adopted throughout traditional manufacturing, industrial robots have failed to find a place in garment sewing applications due to the robots’ difficulties in handling limp textiles. This makes the global apparel industry strongly dependent on manual labor.
The outputs from an Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing Institute...
Through a partnership with Catawba Valley Community College’s Manufacturing Solutions Center (MSC) and Gaston College’s Textile Technology Center (TTC) comes the birth of the Manufacturing & Textile Innovation Network (MTIN).
The partnership of these two centers is a vision of Dr. Garrett Hinshaw, president of Catawba Valley Community College and...
It goes without saying that 2020 has been a particularly interesting year.
The challenges, constraints and complex (and often contradictory) safety and productivity requirements COVID-19 presented the manufacturing industry have tested its people, its processes and its technologies like never before. It fundamentally changed the way the industry...
The COVID-19 pandemic was a wake-up call for manufacturers. As lockdown orders took hold across the country, many factories scaled back or closed, leaving workers unable to return to their jobs.
But while many office staff and managers have been able to work from home, factories have not yet been designed in a way that allows workers on the factory...
An advanced manufacturing program is being offered to small businesses hit hard by the pandemic.
Lift Detroit is offering certification to 250 manufacturing workers in CNC machine operations, industrial technology maintenance, welding and robotics.
The program is known as “Operation Next” and is free through funding from the CARES Act.
Officials...