FuzeHub’s mission is to help small and mid-sized manufacturers in New York State grow through connections to technical and other resources. Over the past few years, the U.S. government has invested in a new wave of technical assets and expertise to stimulate manufacturing innovation—including significant new capabilities in New York State. This report summarizes this federal program, known as Manufacturing USA.
Fourteen different manufacturing innovation institutes comprise Manufacturing USA. These institutes are public-private partnerships that each have distinct technology focus areas but work towards a common goal: to secure America’s future through manufacturing innovation, education, and collaboration.
Manufacturing USA institutes focus on moving promising, early-stage research into proven capabilities ready for adoption by U.S. manufacturers. Their membership includes manufacturers as well as researchers from universities and government laboratories. The institutes provide members with access to state-of-the-art facilities and equipment, as well as workforce training and skills development customized to support new technology areas. Collaboration at the institutes and across the network creates an innovation community ushering in the next generation manufacturing supply chains located in America and employing Americans.
New York-based institutions are playing leading roles in many of the institutes, and New York State has invested in several. Additionally, Empire State Development’s Division of Science, Technology & Innovation (NYSTAR), under a separate federal award, is embedding New York Manufacturing Extension Partnership personnel into multiple institutes to serve as liaisons between their facilities and small and mid-sized manufacturers.
The national Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP)—a network of hundreds of organizations like FuzeHub and the other New York MEP centers—is playing a role in moving the institutes’ newly developed technologies into the small companies that comprise the bulk of the U.S. manufacturing base.
Small and mid-sized manufacturers can get involved by:
• Becoming members of an institute. Membership in most institutes is tiered to be more affordable to small companies. Membership tiers provide different levels of access to institute facilities, expertise, and IP; as well as benefits like involvement in institute governance, technical roadmapping, and marketplaces or technical commons.
• Partnering with other companies and universities to bid on R&D “project calls” issued by the institutes.
• Receiving training and toolkits from your local Manufacturing Extension Partnership center when they have been made available. For example, toolkits to help companies adopt digital manufacturing technologies will be available soon.
Manufacturers seeking more information or connection to the appropriate Institute should visit www.fuzehub.com for a no-cost consultation and referral.
The following are summaries of each Manufacturing USA institute.
American Institute for Manufacturing Integrated Photonics (AIM Photonics)
AIM Photonics is an industry driven public-private partnership that focuses the nation’s premiere capabilities and expertise to capture critical global manufacturing leadership in a technology that is both essential to national security and positioned to provide a compelling return-on-investment to the U.S. economy. The Institute’s goal is to emulate the dramatic successes experienced by the electronics industry over the past 40 years and transition key lessons, processes, and approaches to the photonic integrated circuit (PIC) industry. AIM Photonics supports small and mid-sized enterprises, providing practical access and technology on-ramps for U.S. industry, government, and academic communities. They are creating a national PIC manufacturing infrastructure, widely accessible and inherently flexible to meet the challenges of the marketplace with practical, innovative solutions. The open-access AIM Photonics Test, Assembly, and Packaging (TAP) Facility in Rochester features a strategically designed tool set and analytical lab for advancing next-generation PIC technology.
Website: www.aimphotonics.com Headquarters: Rochester, NY
Contact: [email protected] | Edward White, AIM Photonics
Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation (IACMI)
Advanced composites are currently used for expensive applications like satellites and luxury cars. Researchers at IACMI are developing lower-cost, higher-speed, and more efficient manufacturing and recycling processes for them. Bringing these materials down the cost curve can enable their use for a broader range of products including lightweight vehicles with record-breaking fuel economy; lighter and longer wind turbine blades; high pressure tanks for natural gas-fueled cars; and lighter, more efficient industrial equipment. The Institute will focus on lowering the overall manufacturing costs of advanced composites by 50 percent, reducing the energy used to make composites by 75 percent and increasing the recyclability of composites to over 95 percent within the next decade.
Website: www.iacmi.org Headquarters: Knoxville, TN
NYS Contact: [email protected] | Leonard Poveromo, Composite Prototyping Center (IACMI Northeast Satellite)
Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute (DMDII)
DMDII is the nation’s flagship research institute for applying cutting-edge digital technologies to reduce the time and cost of manufacturing, strengthen the capabilities of the U.S. supply chain and reduce acquisition costs for the U.S. Department of Defense. DMDII develops and demonstrates digital manufacturing technologies, and deploys and commercializes these technologies across key manufacturing industries. The goal is to create product and manufacturing process definitions simultaneously. Design innovation is the ability to apply these technologies, tools and products to re-imagine the manufacturing process from end to end.
Website: dmdii.uilabs.org Headquarters: Chicago, IL
NYS Contact: [email protected] | Michael Thurston, Rochester Institute of Technology
America Makes: The National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute
America Makes focuses on helping the United States grow capabilities and strength in 3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing. America Makes facilitates collaboration among leaders from business, academia, nonprofit organizations and government agencies, focusing on areas that include design, materials, technology and workforce and help our nation’s three-dimensional (3D) printing industry become more globally competitive.
Website: www.americamakes.us Headquarters: Youngstown, OH
NYS Contact: [email protected] | Denis Cormier, Rochester Institute of Technology
NextFlex, America’s Flexible Hybrid Electronics Manufacturing Innovation Institute
This Institute is focused on developing a new era in flexible hybrid electronics (FHE) manufacturing by catalyzing the US flexible hybrid electronics ecosystem to commercialize technology through investments in FHE materials scale-up, thinned device processing, device/sensor integrated printing and packaging, system design tools, and reliability testing and modeling.
Website: www.nextflex.us Headquarters: San Jose, CA
NYS Contact: [email protected] | Mark Poliks, Binghamton University
Clean Energy Smart Manufacturing Innovation Institute
CESMII is enabling smart manufacturing to become the driving, sustainable engine that delivers real-time business improvements in U.S. manufacturing. CESMII enables rapid technology adoption to increase productivity, job growth, energy efficiency, safety and time to market for companies of all sizes.
Website: www.cesmii.org Headquarters: Los Angeles, CA
NYS Contact: [email protected] | Craig Dory, Director of CESMII Northern Regional Manufacturing Center located at RPI
PowerAmerica
The mission of PowerAmerica is to develop advanced manufacturing processes that will enable large-scale production of wide bandgap (WBG) semiconductors, which allow electronic components to be smaller, faster and more efficient than semiconductors made from silicon. WBG semiconductor technology has the potential to reshape the American energy economy by increasing efficiency in everything that uses a semiconductor, from industrial motors and household appliances to military satellites.
Website: www.poweramericainstitute.org Headquarters: Raleigh, NC
NYS Contact: [email protected]
LIFT – Lightweight Innovations for Tomorrow
LIFT is part of a national network of research institutions and industrial companies geared toward advancing America’s leadership in manufacturing technology. LIFT is speeding development of new lightweight metal manufacturing processes from laboratories to factories for products using lightweight metal, including aluminum, magnesium, titanium and advanced high-strength steel alloys.
Website: lift.technology Headquarters: Detroit, MI NYS Contact: [email protected] | Michael Fornasiero, Empire State Development
Advanced Functional Fabrics of America (AFFOA)
Recent breakthroughs in fiber materials and manufacturing processes will soon allow us to design and produce fabrics that see, hear, sense, communicate, store and convert energy, regulate temperature, monitor health and change color—the dawn of a “fabric revolution”. AFFOA will accelerate widespread commercialization of highly functional fabrics. AFFOA is built on a simple premise: functional fabrics necessitate deep fiber innovation and predictive manufacturing. AFFOA has America’s leading IP cache in semiconductor fibers and assemblies.
Website: affoa.org Headquarters: Cambridge, MA
NYS Contact: [email protected] | Juan Hinestroza, Cornell University
Clean Energy Manufacturing Innovation Institute for Reducing Embodied-energy and Decreasing Emissions in Materials Manufacturing (REMADE)
As global competition and resource scarcity increases, U.S. manufacturers will look for new solutions to help them reduce the cost of raw materials, energy, water and more by becoming more efficient and sustainable. The mission of the REMADE Institute is to not only pioneer these solutions to make U.S. manufacturing better by reducing net-energy costs and reducing costly manufacturing waste materials and emissions, but to also grow new clean-tech and clean energy businesses and jobs.
Website: rit.edu/gis/remade Headquarters: Rochester, NY
NYS Contact: [email protected] | Michael Fornasiero, Empire State Development
Rapid Advancement in Process Intensification Deployment (RAPID) Institute
This institute is developing breakthrough technologies to boost domestic energy productivity and energy efficiency by 20 percent in five years through manufacturing processes in industries such oil and gas, pulp and paper and various domestic chemical manufacturers. Traditional chemical manufacturing relies on large-scale, energy-intensive processing. RAPID is leveraging approaches to modular chemical process intensification—for example combining multiple, complex processes such as mixing, reaction, and separation into single steps—with the goal of improving energy productivity and efficiency, cutting operating costs, and reducing waste. In the chemical industry alone, these technologies have the potential to save more than $9 billion in process costs annually.
Website: http://processintensification.org Headquarters: New York City
Contact: [email protected] | Joel Maul, ITAC
National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals (NIIMBL)
NIIMBL is advancing U.S. leadership in the biopharmaceutical industry, foster economic development, improve medical treatments and ensure a qualified workforce by collaborating with educational institutions to develop new training programs matched to specific biopharma skill needs. Traditional pharmaceutical production relies on chemistry to create medical treatments. Biopharmaceutical production relies on biology—living cells produce the treatments or their components—which requires a complex manufacturing process. Biomanufacturing is used to produce many widely-used treatments for a growing number of health conditions such as cancer, autoimmune disorders and infectious diseases—and generates billions of dollars in revenue worldwide. However, innovation is needed to allow more rapid and flexible production to meet healthcare demands and ensure U.S. leadership in the industry.
Website: www.niimbl.org Headquarters: University of Delaware
NYS Contact: [email protected] | Steven Cramer, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute (BioFabUSA)
This institute is developing next-generation manufacturing techniques for repairing and replacing cells and tissues, which may one day lead to the ability to manufacture new skin for soldiers scarred from combat or develop organ-preserving technologies to benefit Americans waiting for an organ transplant.
Headquarters: Manchester, NH NYS Contact: [email protected] | Michael Fornasiero, Empire State Development
Advanced Robotics Manufacturing (ARM) Institute
To foster and grow the national manufacturing ecosystem, the Advanced Robotics Manufacturing (ARM) Institute has formed a national, public-private partnership to develop, demonstrate, and facilitate early adoption of novel robotic solutions. Based in Pittsburgh at Carnegie Mellon University, ARM includes a national network of 231 stakeholders from industry, academia, local governments and nonprofits.
ARM’s 10-year goals include increasing worker productivity by 30 percent, creating 510,000 new manufacturing jobs in the U.S., ensuring that 30 percent of SMEs adopt robotics technology, and providing the ecosystem where major industrial robotics manufacturers will emerge. ARM focuses on critical growth sectors that are ripe for rapid adoption of robotics in manufacturing, including aerospace, automotive, electronics, and textiles.
Website: www.arminstitute.org Headquarters: Pittsburgh, PA (Carnegie Mellon University)
NYS Contacts: [email protected] – John Wen, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | [email protected] – Elena Garuc, FuzeHub (co-leads of ARM Institute’s Regional Robotics Innovation Collaborative for the Mid-Atlantic)