“We are bringing government, industry, and academia together,” says John Dyck, CEO of CESMII, the Smart Manufacturing Institute. “It’s a convening of the best thinkers – manufacturers, designers, machine builders, and integrators. We are working together to accelerate the democratization of smart manufacturing.”
USCAR Announces Publication of “Roadmap for Automotive Smart Manufacturing” in partnership with CESMII
The roadmap was developed by a working group of USCAR, whose members are Ford, GM and Stellantis, in collaboration with CESMII – The Smart Manufacturing Institute. The roadmap’s scope includes strategies to improve interoperability of manufacturing systems and to break down digital silos of legacy platforms.
Article courtesy of Manufacturing USA as part of their Network @ Work Series
It’s a challenge for any company to efficiently invest in research and development (R&D) for advanced manufacturing applications. Costs are high and success is not a given. Joining industry peers in R&D to reduce risk also presents a dilemma: How do you help drive your company and the industry forward with technological innovation without sacrificing your proprietary information and differentiating applications? This dilemma applies across the spectrum of manufacturing, from global giants to tiny startups.
Companies are willing to share in the pain of addressing industry challenges that are bigger than any one entity. They are looking to collaborate with experts – whether they are from industry, academia or government – provided it is in a neutral, pre-competitive environment.
Private sector companies join institutes in the Manufacturing USA network to help de-risk and accelerate technology development. Institute members benefit from pooled R&D (sometimes with federal cost-sharing), access to expertise and state-of-the-art facilities with testing and prototyping equipment, and exposure to potential new partners. These Manufacturing USA institutes cover a wide range of technical domains, from biopharmaceutical production to composites, from robotics to cybersecurity.
“There is a high cost to build a proof of concept for new technology, and that cost is reduced in these facilities,” said Mike Shimauz, Smart Factory Technical Director at RTX Corporation, previously known as Raytheon Technologies, which is a member of six Manufacturing USA institutes. “We trust the process of protecting intellectual property (at the institutes), but there definitely are innovations that can be shared to help all of industry.”
Providing a Neutral Setting for Innovation
The institutes serve as a trusted third party for coming together to solve industry challenges. Many institute members are looking for a neutral setting for this pre-competitive collaboration, where joint R&D is conducted with the understanding that private sector company commercialization efforts will have to be conducted elsewhere.
“We are bringing government, industry, and academia together,” says John Dyck, CEO of CESMII, the Smart Manufacturing Institute. “It’s a convening of the best thinkers – manufacturers, designers, machine builders, and integrators. We are working together to accelerate the democratization of smart manufacturing.”
The institutes share the common purpose of solving proof-of-concept problems in order to scale manufacturing. But their projects vary greatly in their Manufacturing Readiness Level (MRL), which many companies refer to as Technology Readiness Level (TRL). For example, some projects are closer to the idea stage, such as dealing with a laboratory demonstration of a new application (MRL 4). Other projects are much closer to commercialization, such as implementing innovation in a production environment (MRL 7).
