The NCMS program to create digital manufacturing centers to provide high performance computing (HPC) tools and expertise to U.S. manufacturing companies is making waves nationally. Earlier this month, the Harvard Business Review took notice, and now Computerworld.

The latest article describes how L&L Products, in Romeo, Mich., doubled its size after adopting HPC technology.

L&L began using high performance computing about six years ago to build a new structural composite line for automotive makers. To accomplish this, it needed to design and test its products in vehicle crash simulations to see how they could be best applied in automobiles…”It doubled our business,” said Reagan, adding that the firm now makes about $220 million annually and has about 900 global employees.

NCMS is now moving ahead with a plan to make this technology available to all U.S. manufacturers. Initial estimates indicate that over 300,000 companies could benefit from digital manufacturing to create new products and grow their companies. If even a fraction of these companies have the success of L&L the impact on the national economy will be profound.

In addition to deploying digital manufacturing centers, NCMS has formed a Digital Manufacturing Strategic Interest Group to identify and break down barriers that have prevented  manufacturers from adopting HPC technology.

Full Article

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In a recent blog entry, Manufacturing’s New Innovation Labs, the Harvard Business Review (HBR) cites NCMS efforts to provide advanced modeling tools to U.S. manufacturers as prime example of how companies are finding new ways to innovate in response global competition. NCMS is creating a network of regional centers to make high performance (HPC) tools available to all U.S. manufacturers and partnering with other organization with a similar vision.

…Smaller companies in the manufacturing sector, competing in a global environment for increasingly sophisticated products, often don’t possess the financial strength or the in-house technical expertise to take advantage of the available science and engineering resources that can help them innovate and grow. New types of local and regional consortia or clusters are popping up in response to this problem, sometimes facilitated by public-private partnerships. An interesting example, just getting under way, is the Midwest Project for SME-OEM Use of Modeling and Simulation–a consortium of large OEMs like General Electric, Proctor & Gamble, and Deere; the State of Ohio; and several projects funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), including the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences, the Ohio Super-Computer Center, and the Network for Computational Nanotechnology (NCN).

NCMS has also formed a Digital Manufacturing Strategic Interest Group to identify and break down barriers to adoption that have prevented  manufacturers from adopting HPC technology.

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The article trumpeted a survey by General Electric that found most manufacturing executives-

…say that cost-cutting would help in the near term, nearly all of them say innovation is crucial to long-term success.

A powerful message as we work to get American manufacturing back on track in the face of global competition.

But while the survey is good news for those of us who believe that manufacturers must adopt tools and processes that lead to sustainable innovation the article tells us something as well.

The accompanying photo speaks to the image problem that manufacturing faces as we move into the future.

It reinforces every negative stereotype that our industry struggles to rise above.

A worker exposed to the elements, crouched over a rusted piece of metal?

What exactly is being manufactured here?

It has NOTHING to do with advanced manufacturing or innovation in the United States, but it does speak volumes to the challenge we face for people to appreciate the current state of manufacturing. Today’s advanced manufacturing requires a blend of high technology skills like no other industry on the planet.

Take for example the Chevrolet Volt. The Volt requires the integration of advanced materials and software that make it one of the most cutting edge vehicles ever created. It relies on over 10 million lines of software code to manage its embedded systems – easily surpassing a Boeing 787 which only has 8 million lines of code.

Not exactly your father’s Chevrolet.

The future of manufacturing will require companies to integrate new processes and technologies like never before.  NCMS has been at the forefront of driving R&D innovation with our unique collaborative process which teams end users, technology developers and integrators to speed the creation of practical manufacturing technology to market. Our process is fine tuned to manage the challenges facing the American Manufacturing industry.

We need to work to erase the perception that manufacturing is dirty, dangerous, and in decline.

NCMS is partnering with leading organizations to create a number of Predictive Innovation Centers (PICs) which will help American Manufacturing permanently shed these negative images. These centers will revolutionize every sector of manufacturing to ensure that American companies are global leaders in innovation and technology.

A new age of manufacturing is dawning and we salute GE in helping identify innovation as being the key to manufacturing growth but the poor image selection by the editors of the Huffington Post dilutes that important message.

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