Highlighting Manufacturing Innovation, Collaboration, and Education
This comprehensive report highlights the manufacturing technology and workforce development innovations underway at the manufacturing innovation institutes that are part of Manufacturing USA®. Institutes work with members from the manufacturing industry, academia, government entities and non-profits on pre-competitive development of critical technologies and the skills needed by the workforce to leverage them into manufacturing.
Manufacturing USA was created in 2014 to secure U.S. global leadership in advanced manufacturing through large scale public-private collaboration on technology, supply chain and workforce development. Three agencies sponsor the institutes - the U.S. Departments of Commerce, Energy and Defense - and six additional federal agency partners support the effort.
Our mission is to: “connect people, ideas, and technology to solve industry-related advanced manufacturing challenges, thereby enhancing industrial competitiveness and economic growth and strengthening national security.”
Highlights include:
- In fiscal year 2019, the institutes:
- worked with 1,920 member organizations, 61% are manufacturers and ~70% of those are small companies (less than 500 employees)
- conducted 561 major research and development projects
- engaged 39,876 students, workers and teachers in advanced manufacturing workforce development and training
- invested $488 million in these activities from state, industry and federal funds
- Rapid responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, mobilizing members and regional partners to expand production of PPE, increase testing capacity, provide workforce training and more
- Strengthening the nation’s manufacturing supply chains
- Building innovation ecosystems to effectively collaborate on applied R&D, moving American discoveries into production
- Empowering the next generation workforce through activities with national partners, such as the NIIMBL eXperience with HBCUs and BioFabUSA working with FIRST Robotics to develop a biofabrication experience for grade school students
- Rethinking Manufacturing, a short documentary featuring America Makes and two young engineers in Youngstown, Ohio, won three regional Emmy Awards
- A whole-of-government approach to strengthen American economic competitiveness and help ensure that what is invented here is made here by a skilled American workforce.
