White House Outlines eBlueprint for Revitalizing American Manufacturing

The White House recently released Capturing Domestic Competitive Advantage in Advanced Manufacturing, a blueprint intended to serve as a national framework for the sustainable resurgence in advanced manufacturing in the United States. The report was written by the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP) steering committee, a national public-private partnership formed by the Obama administration in 2011 to help increase public and private investments in advanced manufacturing and create high-paying manufacturing jobs. The report outlines a set of 16 recommendations around three pillars — enabling innovation, securing the talent pipeline and improving the business climate. For a sustainable resurgence in advanced manufacturing, the report's authors contend that the government and industry must work together with a sustained focus, aligned interests and coordinated actions to adopt the report's proposed recommendations. Recommendations include:

• The establishment of a national advanced manufacturing strategy that would put in place a systematic process to identify and prioritize critical cross-cutting technologies;
• A starter list of cross-cutting technologies vital to advanced manufacturing and a process to evaluate current/future technologies for research and development (R&D) funding;
• A new, more robust environment for commercialization of advanced manufacturing technologies that connects manufacturers to university innovation ecosystems and creates a continuum of capital access from startup to scale-up;
• The development of a marketing plan to build excitement and interest in manufacturing career;
• To support the needs of small and medium-sized manufacturing firms, a searchable national database of manufacturing resources;
• Increased investments in Community College Level Education to develop a skilled workforce for advanced manufacturing;
• A new focus on advanced manufacturing in higher education through the development of advanced manufacturing university programs and a National Manufacturing Fellowships & Internships;
• Specific tax reforms that can level the playing field for domestic manufacturers including lowering the corporate tax rate; and,
• A new framework for smarter regulations relating to advanced manufacturing.

The report also includes a review of the importance of advanced manufacturing on the U.S. economy, national security, innovation and global competiveness. Read the report...