NCMS as the premier provider of collaborative research, information, knowledge and expertise to the North American manufacturing and defense community has spearheaded numerous technology developments to drive innovation for American manufacturers. Today, one of America’s greatest competitive assets is our high performance computing (HPC) capability. This tool set has been steadily developed and utilized by our nation’s government laboratories and largest industrial companies for many years, contributing to the success of many missions. This massive processing capability will be a significant enabler for U.S. manufacturing and related industries, and key to sustaining our global innovation leadership. If shared throughout our entire manufacturing base, including small and medium sized manufacturers, our competitiveness in the world will be enhanced. 

To achieve this end, the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences is developing a national innovation network: a knowledge infrastructure which leverages the wealth of talent, ideas and facilities within our nation’s universities, national labs and industrial research centers so that we can innovate smarter, faster, and more predictably.

Learn More About this Project Opportunity

NCMS has been awarded two five-year Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) grants totalling $2.6 Million to assist the regulated industries understand and comply with environmental regulations impacting their sector-specific industries.  The goal is to improve processes and reduce pollution, while saving money by sharing effective pollution control techniques.

Funding is provided for NCMS to continue to manage several Compliance Assistance Centers (CACs) allowing individuals and companies alike to access regulatory information and best management practices tailored to their specific industry.  While EPA provides funding, control of the site remains with NCMS.  This assures individual regulatory questions are addressed without having to make direct contact with EPA and other State and Local regulatory agencies initially.

Over the past several years, NCMS has received EPA funding in excess of $8 Million supporting environmental and sustainability programs.

Centers that NCMS will be managing directly or hosting under these new grants include:

• Metal Finishing
• Construction
• Paints and Coatings
• Transportation
• Ports
• Borders (multi-language including Canada, Mexico, Imports/Exports and China)
• Food Processing
• Auto Recycling
• Local Government
• 24 State Locators (provides easy access to state-specific regulations and resources for all Centers in twenty four specific categories including Universal Waste, Stormwater, Asbestos, Lead, and Hazardous Waste)

For more information please contact:  

NCMS Program Manager Bill Chenevert at (734) 995-7989 or billc@ncms.org

Dr. Manish Mehta, NCMS Executive Director and Principal Investigator of the 2009 NCMS-NSF Nanotechnology Industry Commercialization Study Project, will present highlights of the 2009 industry survey project at a Plenary Session on “Education, Innovation and Entrepreneurship” during the Spring 2010 Meeting of the Ohio Section of American Physical Society (OSAPS) being held at Kettering University, Flint, MI on Saturday, May 1, 2010.  The talk is titled, “Profile of Clean Technology Commercialization in the U.S.”

Over 270 senior industry executives participated in the 2009 NCMS Nanomanufacturing Industry Survey sponsored by the National Science Foundation – it is the third study conducted by NCMS (previous studies were done in 2003 and 2005), and is the largest cross-industry survey on nanotechnology commercialization trends in the U.S.

The NCMS survey indicates that nanotechnology products are fast becoming commonplace, and that products addressing clean technologies such as energy efficiency, materials, storage and environmentally conscious manufacturing are the fastest-growing applications of nanotechnology in leading segments of the U.S. Manufacturing Industry.  The presentation will highlight key growth markets over the next five years, collaboration patterns, infrastructure characteristics, and business strategy trends across all regions of the United States, which remains the world leader in nanotechnology innovation and entrepreneurialism.

The talk will include a discussion on the impact of the 2008-09 recession on entrepreneurialism in nanotechnology. The survey found that the U.S. Nanotechnology Industry weathered the recent economic storm by consolidation of weaker organizations, and is ready to emerge stronger and better focused on integrating nanoscale materials and processes into value-adding products and systems across many market segments.  The information developed by NCMS is especially useful for benchmarking commercialization practices, identifying common concerns in nanomanufacturing, and assessing the impact of public-private investments such as the National Nanotechnology Initiative.

Spring 2010 Meeting of the Ohio Section of American Physical Society (OSAPS) 

Aerospace Engineering & Manufacturing Magazine has a great article highlighting the success of the award-winning NCMS-CTMA Volumetric Accuracy for Large Machine Tools (VALMT) project.

...One of the most vexing catch-22s in large-part machining appears to have finally been caught. Rapid volumetric compensation for high accuracy in large-scale five-axis machining is now within the grasp of the manufacturing community.

Why is this significant? Large components are often painstakingly crafted from numerous smaller components because the best machining technologies are not accurate enough to achieve the tight tolerances on large monolithic parts that could reduce part count and assembly time

...A joint project of the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences called Volumetric Accuracy for Large Machine Tools (VALMT)—involving Mag Industrial Automation Systems, Automated PrecisionInc. (API), Boeing, and Siemens—recently completed development of a rapid, and hence game-changing, approach to volumetric error compensation. Created especially for large and multi-axis machines, the system achieves the goals set by the design consortium: to reduce the downtime needed to determine necessary volumetric compensations from weeks to a day or less via a simple automated process that improves a machine tool’s volumetric performance by 50% or more.

Full Article

VALMT Podcast

Universities, Research Labs, and Companies Innovate to Develop Future Ground Vehicle Technologies

Ann Arbor, MI., April 22, 2010 – The Robotics Technology Consortium, Inc. (RTC) today announced that the Government has awarded 19 projects funding totaling $7 Million. These teams will undertake the research required to further develop innovative technologies that add capabilities to currently deployed unmanned ground vehicles and enhance future unmanned ground systems.

The winning team leads and projects are:

• Vecna Corporation – “Advanced Hydraulic Actuation”
• Autonomous Solutions, Inc. – “Long Range Obstacle Detection”
• Carnegie Mellon University – “Online Long Range Obstacle Detection with Fused LADAR and Imagery”
• SET Corporation – “Long Range Obstacle Detection”
• Pelican Mapping – “3D Scene and Model Visualization”
• RE2, Inc. – “Conformal Robotic Hand”
• Carnegie Mellon University – “Generic Aided INS for Small UGVs”
• University of Michigan – “Heuristics-enhanced Dead-reckoning System for Small Robot Navigation”
• Think-A-Move, Ltd – “Speech Signature Based Biometric Security”
• Carnegie Mellon University – “Robotic Evaluation of Tunnel Mapping and Navigation Sensors”
• Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) – “Counter Tunnel Mapping and Characterization”
• Foster-Miller, Inc. – “Remote Checkpoint”
• HDT Engineering Services, Inc. – “HDT Highly Dexterous Manipulator System”
• Sarnoff Corporation – “Multi-sensor Fusion for Reliable On-the-Move Pedestrian Detection and Tracking”
• General Dynamics Robotics Systems, Inc. – “Ground Vehicle Sensor Suite (GVSS)”
• Innovative Technical Solutions Inc. dba NovaSol – “UGV Lasercomm Interrogator”
• Sarnoff Corporation – “3D Friend and Foe Detection”
• TORC Technologies – “Robotic Building Blocks for Unmanned and Autonomous Systems”
• Carnegie Mellon University – “Advanced Command and Control for High Speed Tele-Operation"

In May 2008, the RTC entered into a $170M Other Transactions Agreement (OTA) with the Department of Defense to better enable nontraditional defense contractors to undertake technical projects on behalf of the Government. Since then, the Government has awarded a total of 37 projects, worth $17M involving 47 member companies, universities, and non-profit organizations.

"The RTC model has shown the ability to stimulate innovation, encourage teaming, and get vital research projects under contract quickly" said Mr. Jose Gonzalez, Acting Director, Land Warfare and Munitions, "Because of these successes, it is being looked at as a model for other industries".

Membership to the Robotics Technology Consortium is open to US based companies, non-profits, and universities.

About Robotics Technology Consortium

The Robotics Technology Consortium (RTC) is a non-profit, industry organization created in 2008 to speed the creation and deployment of ground robotics technology for the Defense Department and other Government organizations. The consortium was established to meet a need identified by the Office of the Secretary of Defense Joint Ground Robotics Enterprise (OSD/JGRE). The RTC currently has a membership of 200 large and small commercial companies, academic institutions, and non-profit organizations. The RTC seeks to solicit and engage companies and organizations that may not have historically performed work for the Defense Department and other Government organizations in addition to traditional defense contractors.

For more information, visit http://www.roboticstechc.org/.

About NCMS

The National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (NCMS) is the largest cross-industry collaborative research and development consortium in North America, and is the only consortial effort in the U.S. devoted exclusively to manufacturing technologies, processes and practices. NCMS has nearly 25 years of experience in the formation and management of complex, multi-partner collaborative R&D programs, and is backed by corporate members representing virtually every manufacturing sector.

For more information, visit http://www.ncms.org.

April 27-29, 2010, Rock Financial Showplace- Novi, Michigan

Day One Keynote - NCMS President Rick Jarman

Innovation in Manufacturing for Tomorrow: 
Competitiveness in the 21st Century

The world is changing. We must change with it. After decades of a waning investment in U.S. manufacturing, the nation is once again looking to manufacturing and industry to revitalize the economy. Tomorrow's manufacturing will make use of innovative new solutions - as revolutionary as the assembly line was in 1908 - to reinvent the very concept of how things are made, and how organizations compete in today's society. For the first time, innovation and manufacturing are being uttered in the same breath. Groundbreaking tools like high-performance predictive modeling and simulation, and an investment in a shared national infrastructure, will populate a new manufacturing landscape. It's time to move beyond outdated perceptions of manufacturing, embrace exciting new opportunities, and re-energize our nation once again. NCMS President and CEO Rick Jarman, a lifelong champion of innovative manufacturing, is your guide to a bright, competitive future.

“Good R&D produces innovations, but that’s not the end of the line,” said NCMS President & CEO Rick Jarman. “Every flash of genius, every successful outcome, every realized solution needs to be brought to market.” Collaborative R&D enlists the needs of the end users from the very beginning, ensuring successful commercialization of the innovation.”

In 2007 the Board of Directors named Rick Jarman President and CEO of NCMS, the largest cross-industry collaborative manufacturing research consortium in the United States devoted exclusively to manufacturing technologies, process and practices. Formed in 1986, the NCMS mission is focused on the development of strategic initiatives and programs aimed at sustaining and enhancing the global competitiveness of North American manufacturing.

The Hyperworks Technology Conference (HTC) brings together more than 600 industry professionals from a broad range of industry verticals including aerospace, automotive, consumer products, electronics, healthcare, heavy equipment, military, rail transit, ship building and white goods. Thought provoking keynote addresses and client presentations highlight industry trends in enterprise simulation and how manufacturers are enabling innovation through simulation. For more information about the 2010 Americas Hyperworks Technology Conference, please visit http://www.altairhtc.com

REGISTER NOW! 
You have until COB Wednesday 4/21
to sign-up for our third Technology Showcase
FRC East, 28-29 April, 2010.

Please plan to participate in the third Technology Showcase to be held April 28-29, 2010.

This is an exclusive opportunity for NCMS members to display technologies for managers, engineers, and artisans at the Fleet Readiness Center (FRC) East Maintenance Center in Cherry Point, North Carolina. The first day of the event will be for technology displays followed by a day of follow-up meetings with FRC personnel on potential applications.

FRC East is currently interested in the following technologies:

• Cleaning
• Data Collection Management
• Non-Destructive Inspection
• Dimensional Measurement
• Stripping/Coating Removal
• Coating/Plating Technologies
• Direct Digital Manufacturing
• Surface Finishing
• Analysis
• Composites

For more information please contact:

NCMS Program Manager Debbie Lilu, debral@ncms.org (734) 995-7038. 

Messier-Dowty is a designer and manufacturer of landing gear systems and components for commercial, regional and business aircraft applications as well as landing gear assemblies for military aircraft applications.  They also provide repair/overhaul and support for landing gear systems.

http://www.messier-dowty.com/

Photos from the 2010 Commercial Technologies for Maintenance Activities Symposium.