DESIGN,
MANUFACTURE, AND INDUSTRIAL INNOVATION
$125,700,000
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The FY 2002 Budget Request for the Design, Manufacture, and Industrial Innovation Subactivity is $125.70 million, a decrease of $490,000, or 0.4 percent, below the FY 2001 Current Plan of $126.19 million. (Millions of Dollars)
Totals may not add due to rounding. The Design, Manufacture, and Industrial Innovation (DMII) Subactivity supports academic research and education activities that spur innovation and enhanced productivity in a broad range of U.S. industries. These activities also support the development of a well-educated and diverse human resource base that is vital to U.S. global competitiveness. DMII identifies the underlying design and manufacturing theories for the innovation of new products, processes and systems in a wide variety of enterprises. Discoveries and major advances in understanding engineering design, operations research, enterprise systems, materials processing & manufacturing and manufacturing machines and equipment form the core of DMII. In 2002, DMII envisions an aggressive expansion into the following four areas: nanomanufacturing, environmentally benign manufacturing, distributed manufacturing, and engineering the service sector. Nanoscience is bridging the gap between the knowledge base at the atomic scale and the knowledge base at the micro-scale. Nanomanufacturing will focus on converting discoveries from nano-science into new products for the benefit of society. Novel discoveries are uncovering new physical, mechanical, electrical, magnetic, chemical and biological properties. To build products, devices and components that take advantage of these unique properties, a range of manufacturing issues need to be addressed: nano-materials processing, nano-component assembly, nano-micro connectivity, nano-product duplication, metrology at nanoscale and environmental compatibility and economical feasibility. In the global economy, environmentally friendly products and services are emerging as a competitive weapon. The U.S. is lagging behind in this area of research and education. Environmentally conscious manufacturing addresses opportunities to regain global competitiveness. Distributed manufacturing addresses the transformation brought about by information technology in global manufacturing. Specialized manufacturing functions distributed around the world such as research, design, production, accounting, human resource, goods distributions, marketing and sales are coordinated for the optimum output of the enterprise. Enterprise resource planning has led to more streamlined manufacturing processes, reducing costs and increasing productivity. The application of enterprise resource planning to the service sector provides a major opportunity for engineering to make a significant contribution to the fast growing service sector. More scientists and engineers are now employed in high technology small businesses than in large businesses. The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs provide support to small businesses for research across the full range of science and engineering disciplines supported by the Foundation, with a goal of creating new technologies, industries, businesses, and jobs. The program also promotes linkages among small businesses, university experts, and state agencies to provide technical business expertise to talented entrepreneurs. DMII also supports activities to promote industry-university linkages and innovation, including the Innovation and Organizational Change (IOC) program, which supports research using theory combined with empirical validation to expand the concepts, models, and methodologies of change in organizations and institutions; the Grant Opportunities for Academic Liaison with Industry (GOALI) program, which facilitates university-industry interactions; and the Special Studies and Assessments program, which supports program evaluations, engineering policy studies and analyses, and international technology assessments. Retrospective assessments have found that DMII grants have resulted in fundamental contributions and, in some cases, led either to the creation of new research fields or the production of seminal knowledge in design and manufacturing. These studies have also documented the eventual commercialization and economic impact of many DMII investments. Results include breakthrough advances in solid free-form fabrication technology, pioneering work in nanotechnology for mass storage devices, and the establishment of supply chain management as a bonafide research field. FY 2002 plans include:
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