The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation - Manufacturing

Singapore Looks to a National Productivity Strategy to Maintain Growth

admin — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 04:00:00 +0000

Singapore’s national strategy for productivity growth continues to evolve as they look to productivity to maintain growth.

“Fab Lab” Bill Would Stimulate Manufacturing Innovation

afearon — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 04:00:00 +0000

The National Fab Lab Network Act of 2013 (H.R. 1289) is a step in the right direction for manufacturing policy.

Technology is Not the Problem — It Is the Solution

afearon — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 04:00:00 +0000

Continued expansion of technology and innovation is necessary for the growth and expansion of 21st century society.

Robots Are Good for Us: Really, They Are!

afearon — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 04:00:00 +0000

The belief that automation is responsible for manufacturing decline is a nothing more than a neoclassical fallacy.

What’s the Right Path for Manufacturing?

afearon — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 04:00:00 +0000

Any effective manufacturing strategy has to include a robust “tech and talent” initiative, which would include a fully funded NNMI.

Congress should direct NSF to establish stronger university entrepreneurship metrics and use them to provide stronger incentives for universities to commercialize research.

afearon — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 19:49:01 +0000

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Congress should direct the National Science Foundation, working in partnership with National Institute of Standards and Technology, to develop a metric by which universities report entrepreneurship and commercialization information annually. The reports should include data on faculty new business starts, spin-offs of new companies from universities, license agreements and patenting, and industrial funding of research. Congress should further direct all major federal research funding agencies to factor these performance metrics into their decisions to award research funds to a university or university researcher. Applicants from universities that successfully promote entrepreneurial spin-offs/start-ups or that receive more in industry research funding would be more likely to have their principal investigator grants funded.

Fifty Ways to Leave Your Competitiveness Woes Behind: A National Traded Sector Competitiveness Strategy

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Congress, working with NIST, should create an “Innovation Voucher” program.

afearon — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 19:47:14 +0000

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Almost a dozen countries—including Austria, Canada, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland, and Sweden—use innovation vouchers (ranging in value from $5,000 to $30,000) to spur R&D, new product development, and innovation activity in traded-sector SME firms by enabling them to “buy” expertise from universities, national laboratories, or public research institutes for assistance with preparatory studies, analysis of technology transfer, analysis of the innovation potential of a new technology, etc. The vouchers both spur innovation in SMEs and stimulate knowledge transfer from universities and research institutions to SMEs. In the United States, innovation vouchers could be introduced at either the federal or state level, but Congress should facilitate their introduction by authorizing $20 million to NIST to fund a pilot program operated by select states that agree to match the funding dollar for dollar. As a potential source of funds to keep this option revenue-neutral, one option would be to take 0.5 percent of the current allocation to national laboratories to fund the vouchers.

Fifty Ways to Leave Your Competitiveness Woes Behind: A National Traded Sector Competitiveness Strategy

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Congress should authorize the creation of a National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI) and allocate at least $500 million to support the initial deployment of at least 15 and as many as 25 Institutes of Manufacturing Innovation.

afearon — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 19:39:44 +0000

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Unlike leading manufacturing nations such as Germany or even the United Kingdom, the United States lacks an integrated, well-funded national network of large-scale, industry-led manufacturing innovation centers that can accelerate technology deployment, operate demonstration facilities and test beds, support education and training, and perform applied research on new manufacturing processes. Accordingly, the United States should develop a National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI) that would establish at least 15 Institutes of Manufacturing Innovation (IMIs) that would bring together industry, universities, community colleges, federal agencies, and states to accelerate innovation by investing in industrially relevant manufacturing technologies with broad applications. The network would help bridge the gap between basic research and product development, provide shared assets to help companies (including SMEs) access cutting-edge capabilities and equipment, and create a compelling environment in which to educate and train students and workers in advanced manufacturing skills. Manufacturers would lead the development of IMI proposals, defining the scope and focus of the Institutes, and provide at least 50 percent of the resources for each IMI, with that contribution growing over time. But Congress should act initially to authorize the creation of the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation and allocate at least $500 million—which would be matched 1:1 by industry and state/regional governments—to establish a $1 billion fund to support deployment at least 15 and as many as 25 manufacturing institutes.

Why America Needs a National Network for Manufacturing Innovation

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Congress and NSF can work together to eliminate the requirement that new proposals for Engineering Research Centers (ERCs) include an international partner.

afearon — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 19:38:04 +0000

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Current regulations perversely require that proposals for new ERCs include an international partner. This is in part a reflection of the NSF culture which views its mission as advocacy of science—because science is internationalized, NSF wants to fund international collaborations. While certainly policy should not prohibit ERCs from including international partners, NSF should eliminate the requirement that an international partner must be involved, since the ERCs’ main goal should be to strengthen U.S. engineering and manufacturing.

Fifty Ways to Leave Your Competitiveness Woes Behind: A National Traded Sector Competitiveness Strategy

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Revitalizing U.S. Manufacturing: What’s It Going To Take?

afearon — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 04:00:00 +0000

ITIF president Rob Atkinson presented the keynote address at the 2013 NACFAM conference.

Congress and the SBA should assist SMEs in traded sectors in obtaining access to credit, in part by creating a 95 percent loan guarantee program.

afearon — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 21:32:56 +0000

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Particularly in the wake of the recession, small manufacturers are having a difficult time accessing credit from financial institutions, and several policies could help remedy this. First, to help small manufacturers that have work orders in hand get credit, Congress should enact a 95 percent loan guarantee program for small manufacturers under the SBA 7(a) guarantee program. Second, the Federal Reserve should consider relaxing some of the stringent guidelines it has placed on local banks with regard to the liquidity ratios SME manufacturers must meet to be eligible for commercial loans. This would allow local banks to better understand and service SMEs’ capital requirements, given their particular cash flow constraints.

Fifty Ways to Leave Your Competitiveness Woes Behind: A National Traded Sector Competitiveness Strategy

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Congress should direct the Small Business Administration to shift its focus toward traded sector firms.

afearon — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 21:24:03 +0000

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The U.S. Small Business Administration should focus more on traded-sector firms through its financing programs, including its 7(a) loan guarantee program. However, the SBA does not appear to give any special priority to traded sector firms, treating all industries alike in its funding priorities, in large part because this is SBA’s charge from Congress. But there are significant differences for U.S. job creation and prosperity between a small manufacturer and a small retail firm, for example. The former plays a significantly more important role in driving economic growth and—through the multiplier effect—jobs. Moreover, the United States will anyway have all the retail firms it needs (e.g., that the market demands), since the sector is not traded. As such, Congress should require the SBA to develop a report for Congress within six months on two items: an analysis of all SBA financing by sector (e.g., how much financing went to manufacturing, retail trade, personal services, information, etc.) and a plan for how SBA can significantly increase the share of SBA financing going to firms in traded sectors. Congress should then require that a significant share of SBA lending—both guarantee and direct lending—go to fund scale-up activities for SMEs in traded sectors.

Fifty Ways to Leave Your Competitiveness Woes Behind: A National Traded Sector Competitiveness Strategy

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Congress should increase funding for the Department of Defense Manufacturing Technology (ManTech) program and encourage expanded use of Title III of the Defense Production Act and to help rebuild America’s defense industrial base.

afearon — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 21:21:43 +0000

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Manufacturing is vital to U.S. national security, but as the U.S. industrial base has moved offshore, so too has the defense industrial base. In response to the country’s inability to reliably manufacture key defense components and to the proliferation of foreign counterfeit parts in the defense supply chain, Congress should double funding for the Department of Defense’s Manufacturing Technology (ManTech) program to approximately $450 million annually. Congress should further encourage federal agencies such as the Department of Defense and Department of Energy to make broader use of Title III of the Defense Production Act, which would help expand U.S. production capabilities to promote national defense while addressing industrial production shortfall issues.

Fifty Ways to Leave Your Competitiveness Woes Behind: A National Traded Sector Competitiveness Strategy

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Congress should create a Spurring Commercialization of Our Nation’s Research program that allocates 0.3 percent of agency research budgets to support university, state, and federal laboratory technology commercialization initiatives.

afearon — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 20:34:44 +0000

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The current federal system for funding research pays too little attention to the commercialization of technology. Accordingly, Congress should establish an automatic set-aside program that takes a modest percentage of federal research budgets and allocate this to a technology commercialization fund. Specifically, Congress should allocate 0.3 percent of agency research budgets—about $250 million per year—to fund university, federal laboratory, and state government technology commercialization and innovation efforts. Half the funds would go to universities and federal laboratories that could use the funds to create a variety of initiatives, including mentoring programs for researcher entrepreneurs, student entrepreneurship clubs and entrepreneurship curriculum, industry outreach programs, seed grants for researchers to develop commercialization plans, etc. and the other half would go to match state technology-based economic development (TBED) programs.

Fifty Ways to Leave Your Competitiveness Woes Behind: A National Traded Sector Competitiveness Strategy

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Expand funding for the Engineering Research Center (ERC) and Industry/University Cooperative Research Center (I/UCRC) programs at NSF to spur research commercialization.

afearon — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 20:31:37 +0000

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Congress should double the National Science Foundation’s funding for ERCs from the current base of $55 million up to $110 million over a three year period and increase funding for the IUCRC program from $7.1 million to $50 million over that time-frame. This would support the creation of additional I/UCRC centers and expand NSF engineering support provided to each center. Further, to ensure that ERCs represent a true joint university-industry research partnership, funding for all ERCs should have at least a 40 percent industry match by 2017.

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Congress should enable SMEs to create Manufacturing Reinvestment Accounts.

afearon — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 20:28:48 +0000

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To help SME manufacturers bootstrap themselves, Congress should establish a 401(k)-like “deferred investment” program for SME manufacturers allowing them to make tax-deferred investments into manufacturing reinvestment accounts, where the funds can be subsequently withdrawn tax-free if used for research and development, workforce training, or capital equipment investments. In 2011, Connecticut put such a program in place for its SME manufacturers.

Fifty Ways to Leave Your Competitiveness Woes Behind: A National Traded Sector Competitiveness Strategy

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2013 Aviation Summit Highlights Industry’s Contributions to U.S. Economic Competitiveness

afearon — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 04:00:00 +0000

The health of U.S. traded sector enterprises in industries such as aerospace, automobiles, and airlines simply can’t be taken for granted.

Strengthening America’s Clean Energy Manufacturing Capability

afearon — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 04:00:00 +0000

The Clean Energy Manufacturing Initiative is a significant first step on the path to a robust U.S. clean energy manufacturing sector.

Congress needs to pass a 21st Century Morrill Act.

afearon — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 18:18:30 +0000

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In 1862, President Lincoln signed the Morrill Act, which created the nation’s system of land grant colleges. Today, we need a new Morrill Act with the federal government supporting the designation of a core of about twenty leading “manufacturing universities.” Universities would receive $50 million a year, plus prioritization of their projects in the awarding of NSF grants.

Winning the Race 2012 Memos

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The Obama Administration should transform Fannie Mae into an industrial bank.

afearon — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 18:18:24 +0000

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Former Intel CEO Andy Grove notably has called for a “scaling bank” to help scale innovations to production in the United States. To do this, the Obama administration should call for repurposing Fannie Mae into an industrial financing organization. The very existence of Fannie Mae reflects the fact that America has put more emphasis on consumption (housing) than on production (manufacturing). The new Fannie Mae (perhaps called the Federal National Industrial Mortgage Association) would buy and resell loans made to traded sector firms from banks and other lenders.

Winning the Race 2012 Memos

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Why the 2000s Were a Lost Decade for American Manufacturing

afearon — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 04:00:00 +0000

In his monthly contribution to "IndustryWeek," Rob Atkinson argues we can expect overall manufacturing output, and the jobs that are based on it, to continue to recede unless we address the real problems we face.

Solutions to Our Manufacturing Problems

afearon — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 04:00:00 +0000

ITIF board chairs Vic Fazio and Nancy Johnson argue for bipartisan solutions to manufacturing renewal.

Manufacturing Revival Radio: Rob Atkinson

afearon — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 05:00:00 +0000

February 21, 2013

Rob Atkinson was interviewed by Manufacturing Revival Radio on U.S. manufacturing and competitiveness.

Rob Atkinson was interviewed by Manufacturing Revival Radio on a variety of topics related to competitiveness and American manufacturing. He touched on the National Network of Manufacturing Institutes, strengthening our traded sector, and the importance of proper government investment in research and development.

View multimedia on external website

The Real Reason Why Washington Should Care About Manufacturing

afearon — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 05:00:00 +0000

In his monthly contribution to "IndustryWeek," Rob Atkinson argues anemic overall performance of the U.S. economy can be tied directly to the loss of traded sector, particularly, manufacturing competitiveness.

Advanced Manufacturing: Today, Tomorrow, and Beyond

afearon — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 05:00:00 +0000

ITIF Senior Analyst Stephen Ezell presented on the future of advanced manufacturing at the AAAS annual conference.

Is Reshoring Really Working?

afearon — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 18:18:22 +0000

Breaking Down the Federal Clean Energy Innovation Budget: Manufacturing Investments

afearon — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 05:00:00 +0000

Like many other parts of America’s energy innovation budget, support for advanced manufacturing is rapidly declining.

The Future of American Manufacturing

afearon — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 05:00:00 +0000

The president’s proposed initiatives are a good start to revitalize manufacturing, but they don’t go nearly far enough.

First U.S. Priority is Making America Magnet for New Jobs and Manufacturing, Says Obama

afearon — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 20:34:57 +0000