Since postponing our 2020 Annual Meeting in early March, CESMII has been active helping the US Manufacturing ecosystem on two fronts: 1. aiding in the immediate Response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and 2. working toward the nation’s long-term economic Recovery.
This is important work, no doubt, but it has NOT pulled us away from our pre-COVID plans and objectives. This global pandemic has shined an enormously powerful spotlight on the importance of manufacturing to both the health and welfare of people everywhere and the economic well-being of communities, nations and the world. We’ve always believed these truths. We always will. Our path forward now is to accelerate and scale the work we began long before the days of COVID-19.
We know you’re being inundated with “coronavirus newsletters” and regular communications about the impact of the virus. At CESMII, we’re taking a different approach. Rather than focusing on the virus, we will continue to focus on the Response and the Recovery. We will continue to search for, support and publicize individuals, organizations and manufacturing communities that are responding and leading efforts to provide critical relief today or laying the groundwork for our future. Here are just a few examples:
CESMII and our sister Manufacturing USA institutes have been appointed by NIST to oversee the release of project funds dedicated explicitly to COVID response or recovery. (Response/Recovery)
CESMII members are helping map Smart Manufacturing solutions to aid startup and long-term production goals of new facilities being built to make N-95 masks. (Response)
Leaders from NC State’s Nonwovens Institute were featured on CESMII’s ‘6-Degrees of Smart Manufacturing’ webinar series to discuss how they ramped up their pilot production facilities to make 20,000 meters/day of materials for N-95 masks. (Response)
CESMII is accelerating plans to roll out dozens of Smart Maker Learning Centers to upskill and reskill workers currently underutilized or unemployed due to the economic slowdown. (Recovery)
Economic and governmental leaders across the U.S. are including CESMII in their plans to educate the talent pool in their regions and ready smaller manufacturers with Smart Manufacturing solutions as quickly as possible. (Recovery)
Please email us (response.recovery@cesmii.org) and help us highlight anyone helping in the COVID-19 Response or the economic Recovery.
It’s important we continue to work together as an ecosystem and support each other in the days and months to come. Stay safe!
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– April 2020