[Federal Register Volume 77, Number 87 (Friday, May 4, 2012)]
[Notices]
[Pages 26509-26511]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2012-10809]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

National Institute of Standards and Technology

[Docket No. 120418419-2419-01]


Request for Information on Proposed New Program: National Network 
for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI)

AGENCY: National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), 
Department of Commerce.

ACTION: Request for information.

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SUMMARY: The NIST-hosted Advanced Manufacturing National Program Office 
(AMNPO) invites interested parties to provide input on a new public-
private partnership program, the National Network for Manufacturing 
Innovation (NNMI or Network). The proposed Network will be composed of 
up to fifteen Institutes for Manufacturing Innovation (IMIs or 
Institutes) around the country, each serving as a hub of manufacturing 
excellence that will help to make United States (U.S.) manufacturing 
facilities and enterprises more competitive and encourage investment in 
the U.S. This program

[[Page 26510]]

was proposed in the President's fiscal year (FY) 2013 budget \1\ and 
was announced by the President on March 9, 2012.\2\ The NNMI program 
will be managed collaboratively by the Department of Defense, 
Department of Energy, Department of Commerce's NIST, the National 
Science Foundation, and other agencies. Industry, state, academic and 
other organizations will co-invest in the Institutes along with the 
NNMI program. For purposes of this notice, ``co-invest'' means that 
non-federal entities will contribute financial and other resources to 
the Institutes to complement federal investments.
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    \1\ See http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2013/assets/budget.pdf, page 217.
    \2\ See http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/03/09/remarks-president-manufacturing-and-economy.

DATES: Comments are due on or before 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on October 
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25, 2012.

ADDRESSES: Comments will be accepted by email only. Comments must be 
sent to [email protected] with the subject line ``NNMI 
Comments.''

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Dr. Michael Schen, 301-975-6741, 
[email protected], or Mr. Prasad Gupte, 301-975-5062, prasad.gupte 
@nist.gov.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

The Challenge

    Numerous recent reports have highlighted the critical role of 
manufacturing to innovation,\3\ jobs,4 5 the economy,\6\ 
exports,7 8 and national security.\9\ Current global trends 
raise serious concerns about U.S. competitiveness in manufacturing, 
including advanced manufacturing.\10\ The Nation's trade balance for 
advanced technology products has deteriorated precipitously over the 
past decade, adding to the overall U.S. trade deficit in 
manufacturing.\11\ One key source of the competitiveness challenge is a 
gap between research and development (R&D) activities and the 
deployment of technological innovations in domestic production of 
goods.\12\ Many technologies fail to move to commercialization or reach 
full scale-up in the U.S. because the domestic private sector, 
particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), finds that the 
risks of such investments are too great for an individual entity to 
make. The private sector also reports challenges in accessing key 
skills and technical infrastructure for demonstration and prototyping 
purposes.
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    \3\ President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology 
(2011) Report to the President on Ensuring Leadership in Advanced 
Manufacturing.
    \4\ Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2011 Employer Costs for Employee 
Compensation, Table 6.
    \5\ National Science Board, Science and Engineering Indicators 
2012, Appendix Table 4-14 and Table 3-32.
    \6\ Bureau of Economic Analysis, 2010 U.S. Economic Accounts by 
Industry, see http://www.bea.gov/industry/index.htm.
    \7\ Bureau of Economic Analysis, Industry-by-Industry Total 
Requirements Table, see http://www.bea.gov/industry/iotables/prod/.
    \8\ Bureau of Economic Analysis and Census, U.S. International 
Trade in Goods and Services.
    \9\ National Science and Technology Council (2012) A National 
Strategic Plan for Advanced Manufacturing, http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/iam_advancedmanufacturing_strategicplan_2012.pdf.
    \10\ R. Atkinson and S. Andes, The Atlantic Century II: 
Benchmarking E.U. and U.S. Innovation and Competitiveness. 
Washington, DC: Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, 
2011.
    \11\ NSTC (2012) Advanced Manufacturing.
    \12\ Deloitte Consulting LLP, Manufacturing Institute (2011), 
Boiling Point? The skills gap in U.S. manufacturing.
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The Response

    To meet this challenge, the U.S. must build on its strengths, 
leverage its unique research, innovation, and workforce capabilities, 
and create an infrastructure for manufacturing innovation to ensure 
that the next generation of processes and products not only will be 
invented in the U.S., but scaled up and manufactured in the U.S. as 
well. The President has proposed that the federal government catalyze 
the creation of a NNMI as a central element of the U.S. response to the 
manufacturing competitiveness challenge.\1\ In doing so, the President 
is building on recommendations made by his Council of Advisors on 
Science and Technology and a wide range of other experts and 
organizations.3 9 10
    The NNMI will be composed of up to fifteen IMIs located around the 
country. The Institutes will bring together large companies, small and 
medium enterprises (SMEs), academia, federal agencies, and the states 
to accelerate innovation through co-investment in industrially relevant 
manufacturing technologies with broad applications. They will take full 
advantage of existing infrastructure by integrating current 
capabilities and building new ones where needed to foster innovation 
that can impact the manufacturing sector on a large scale.
    The objectives of the NNMI are to bridge the gap between applied 
research and product development, provide shared assets to help 
companies gain access to cutting-edge capabilities and equipment, and 
create an unparalleled environment to continuously educate and train 
students and workers in advanced manufacturing skills. Each Institute 
will become a self-sustaining technical center of excellence, providing 
and integrating innovation resources that will help to make U.S. 
manufacturing facilities and enterprises more competitive and encourage 
investment in the U.S.
    The NNMI program will be managed collaboratively by the Department 
of Defense (DoD), the Department of Energy (DOE), the Department of 
Commerce's NIST, the National Science Foundation (NSF), and other 
agencies. Industry, state, academic and other partners will co-invest 
in the Institutes. Should the NNMI be funded in FY2013, the federal 
government will make a $1 billion, one time investment through the NNMI 
program in a series of competitive solicitations staged over several 
years. This start-up investment will help support initial expenses for 
up to 15 Institutes. Participating agencies will oversee the 
solicitations, select award recipients, provide technical assistance to 
applicants, and manage the awards from the NNMI program funding.

Institute Objectives and Attributes

    Each Institute will integrate capabilities and facilities required 
to reduce the cost and risk of commercializing new technologies and to 
address relevant manufacturing challenges on a production-level scale. 
Each will have a well-defined technical focus and will be selected 
through a competitive process.
    Additional attributes will include:
     Long-term partnership between industry (including small, 
medium, and large firms), educational institutions, non-government 
organizations, and state, regional, and local economic development 
authorities;
     Flexibility to form integrated teams of industrial and 
academic experts from multiple disciplines to solve difficult problems 
and to develop the future workforce;
     Adaptability for education and workforce development at 
multiple levels, including K-12, professional credentialing, 
undergraduate and graduate education, and mentoring and professional 
development;
     Involvement of industry associations, professional 
societies, and economic development organizations for validation and 
linkages to broader industry and regional activities;
     Analytical capability to identify critical emerging 
technologies with transformational impact and operational capacity in 
translating these technologies into products and businesses for the 
market;

[[Page 26511]]

     Ability to engage and assist SMEs to effectively deploy 
technologies; and
     A sustained focus on innovation with a strong reputation 
for quality and success.

Examples of Potential Focus Areas

    Each Institute will have a clear focus area that does not overlap 
with those of the other Institutes. The focus area could be an advanced 
material, a manufacturing process, an enabling technology, or an 
industry sector. The federal government does not intend to create or 
provide a complete list of focus areas for the NNMI. The NNMI 
solicitation will invite applicants to propose such areas. The 
following examples are meant only to be suggestive of focus areas that 
might serve national needs and improve the competitiveness of a broad 
base of domestic manufacturers.

    Example 1 (Manufacturing Process):  Refining standards, 
materials, and equipment for additive manufacturing to enable low-
cost, low-volume production using digital designs that can be 
transmitted from designers located anywhere.
    Example 2 (Advanced Materials):  Developing lightweight 
materials, such as low-cost carbon fiber composites (CFCs), that 
will improve fuel efficiency and performance of the next generation 
of automobiles, aircraft, ships, and trains.
    Example 3 (Enabling Technology):  Creating a smart manufacturing 
infrastructure and approaches that integrate low-cost sensors into 
manufacturing processes, enabling operators to make real-time use of 
``big data'' flows from fully instrumented plants in order to 
improve productivity, optimize supply chains, and reduce wastage of 
energy, water, and materials. Creating technology platforms for 
manufacturing Spintronics (spin-based electronics) devices and 
systems for next-generation electronics, and for new paradigms for 
manufacturing photonic assemblies for future all-optical networks 
and wireless communications.
    Example 4 (Industry Sector):  Improving biomanufacturing 
processes to enhance safety, quality, and consistency of 
bioproducts, such as pharmaceuticals or chemicals, by enabling rapid 
on-line sensing and analytical capabilities and creating new tools 
for process optimization, control and improvement to enable cost-
effective production methods.

    Request for Information: The objective of this request for 
information is to assist the NIST-hosted AMNPO in the development of 
the new program should the NNMI be funded in FY 2013. The questions 
below are intended to assist in the formulation of comments, and should 
not be construed as a limitation on the number of comments that 
interested persons may submit or as a limitation on the issues that may 
be addressed in such comments. Comments containing references, studies, 
research, and other empirical data that are not widely published should 
include copies of the referenced materials. All comments will be made 
publicly available.
    The NIST-hosted AMNPO is specifically interested in receiving input 
pertaining to one or more of the following questions:

Technologies With Broad Impact

    1. What criteria should be used to select technology focus areas?
    2. What technology focus areas that meet these criteria would you 
be willing to co-invest in?
    3. What measures could demonstrate that Institute technology 
activities assist U.S. manufacturing?
    4. What measures could assess the performance and impact of 
Institutes?

Institute Structure and Governance

    5. What business models would be effective for the Institutes to 
manage business decisions?
    6. What governance models would be effective for the Institutes to 
manage governance decisions?
    7. What membership and participation structure would be effective 
for the Institutes, such as financial and intellectual property 
obligations, access and licensing?
    8. How should a network of Institutes optimally operate?
    9. What measures could assess effectiveness of Network structure 
and governance?

Strategies for Sustainable Institute Operations

    10. How should initial funding co-investments of the Federal 
government and others be organized by types and proportions?
    11. What arrangements for co-investment proportions and types could 
help an Institute become self-sustaining?
    12. What measures could assess progress of an Institute towards 
being self-sustaining?
    13. What actions or conditions could improve how Institute 
operations support domestic manufacturing facilities while maintaining 
consistency with our international obligations?
    14. How should Institutes engage other manufacturing related 
programs and networks?
    15. How should Institutes interact with state and local economic 
development authorities?
    16. What measures could assess Institute contributions to long term 
national security and competitiveness?

Education and Workforce Development

    17. How could Institutes support advanced manufacturing workforce 
development at all educational levels?
    18. How could Institutes ensure that advanced manufacturing 
workforce development activities address industry needs?
    19. How could Institutes and the NNMI leverage and complement other 
education and workforce development programs?
    20. What measures could assess Institute performance and impact on 
education and workforce development?
    21. How might institutes integrate R&D activities and education to 
best prepare the current and future workforce?

    Dated: April 30, 2012.
Phillip Singerman,
Associate Director for Innovation & Industry Services.
[FR Doc. 2012-10809 Filed 5-3-12; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-13-P