May 2012
Welcome to The CTMA Connector, a monthly newsletter designed to provide news and ideas about the Commercial Technologies for Maintenance Activities (CTMA) program. The CTMA program is a joint Department of Defense/National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (DoD/NCMS) effort promoting collaborative technology development between industry and the DoD maintenance and repair facilities. This newsletter highlights ongoing projects, serves as a forum for promoting new project ideas, and provides other news of interest to the program. Our goal is to stimulate your participation and solicit your input. Feel free to submit items for the newsletter as well as any suggestions to make it more useful. More information about the program can be found at http://ctma.ncms.org/. To subscribe or unsubscribe to the CTMA Connector, send a message to:
listserv@listserv.ncms.org with “subscribe CTMANewsletter” or “unsubscribe CTMANewsletter” in the message body.
Attention: DoD Maintenance and Repair Facilities – Year-end Funding
We have been given an 1 August deadline for the processing of any projects and funds MIPR’ed into the CTMA program. This means any project statement of work and the actual MIPR form completed and coordinated with NCMS. So we need to start working with you now to meet this deadline. Please contact Chuck Ryan (chuckr@ncms.org) or Debbie Lilu (debral@ncms.org) for assistance.
Reshoring Manufacturing: Returning Manufacturing Back to the United States
In pursuit of “lowest price,” many companies offshored more than was in their own self-interest. The resulting longer, less stable supply chains put at risk rapid resupply and the guarantee of getting the “real” part, as shown by the recent reports on counterfeit and used parts entering the supply chain.
Fortunately, economic trends now support a trend to reshore. Boston Consulting Group forecasts that reshoring will rise rapidly over the next few years based on convergence of Chinese and U.S. net manufacturing costs by 2015. This trend was made more visible by President Obama’s Jan 11, 2012 Insourcing Forum in which Harry Moser, Founder and President of the Reshoring Initiative, actively participated.
To help companies make better sourcing decisions and decide to expand or locate factories in the U.S., the Reshoring Initiative provides a deep understanding of the economic trends and a free software that helps companies objectively calculate sourcing decisions’ real current and forecast impact on their P&L. The software helps the user quantify the trade-off of low price or low labor cost vs. the benefits of sourcing closer to the customer and applies to 17 countries.
More information can be found at www.reshorenow.org.
We welcome the following companies/organizations into NCMS:
The Procter & Gamble Company (www.pg.com)
An American multinational corporation headquartered in downtown Cincinnati, OH who manufacturers a wide range of consumer goods.
Onodi Tool and Engineering Company (www.onoditool.com)
Manufacturer of metal, hydraulic, mechanical components and assemblies with capabilities to reverse engineer component parts, assemblies and complete vehicle systems. Also a custom manufacturer of prototype components, assemblies, tooling and machinery.
Russells Technical Products, Inc. (www.russells-tech.com)
A global supplier of environmental test systems
Perfect Point, Inc. (www.ppedm.com)
A manufacturer of EDM tooling
Consumers Energy Company (www.consumersenergy.com)
Regulated Electric and Natural Gas Public Utility with Distribution in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula Counties.
Parker-Hannifin Corporation (www.parker.com)
A leading worldwide manufacturer of motion and control technologies and systems, providing precision engineered solutions for a wide variety of mobile, industrial and aerospace markets.
Chicago Coatings Group (www.chicagocoatingsgroup.com)
Consultants of Coatings, Corrosion and Materials
Goodrich Corporation (www.goodrich.com)
A global supplier of systems and services to the aerospace, defense and homeland security markets with annual revenues of over $7B.
Fraunhofer USA, Inc. (www.fraunhofer.org)
A non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that performs applied research & development under contract to government and industry. Each research center is partnered with a major university in the USA and research focus is primarily on lasers, energy systems, diamond research, vaccines, automation and software.
The University of Alabama (www.ua.edu)
The University of Alabama (UA) is a comprehensive research university offering bachelors, master’s and doctoral degrees in 13 different colleges.
We appreciate your feedback. Please contact Chuck Ryan with suggestions or input on other topics that would be of interest to you in this newsletter. The CTMA Program is sponsored by the Department of Defense; the content of this newsletter does not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the government; no official endorsement should be inferred.
© 2012
