Georgia Tech Part of Four Grants Intended to Strengthen U.S. Manufacturing

Teams from the Georgia Institute of Technology are recipients of four grants recently announced by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The funding is designed to support research that will strengthen U.S. manufacturing and innovation performance across industries. 

The NIST grants, which range from $378,900 to $540,000, were part of $9 million in advanced technology planning grants awarded to 19 universities and other nonprofit organizations and are the first conferred by NIST’s inaugural Advanced Manufacturing Technology Consortia (AMTech).

Todd McDevitt, associate professor, Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering and director of the Stem Cell Engineering Center, will serve as the technical lead for the $499,636 AMTech grant awarded to the Georgia Research Alliance, in partnership with Georgia Tech. With cell therapy manufacturing projected to grow rapidly over the next decade, the funds will be used to establish a national road map and consortium in cell manufacturing to improve access to cutting-edge medical technology for patients.

Ben Wang, executive director of the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute, will serve as the lead for a second AMTech grant totaling $385,112 that will help speed development and deployment of advanced composites.

Georgia Tech’s Institute of Paper Science and Technology, part of the Agenda 2020 Technology Alliance, is a collaborator on the $482,078 NIST funded project that will map pathways for developing advanced technologies for pulp and paper manufacturing. The Agenda 2020 Technology Alliance is an industry-led consortium that promotes development of advanced technologies for the pulp and paper industry. 

Tom Kurfess, professor, George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and HUSCO/Ramirez Distinguished Chair in Fluid Power and Motion Control, is part of a $434,577 award led by the National Center for Defense Manufacturing & Machining focused on developing a strategy and roadmap to identify current barriers to full adoption of MTConnect, an evolving interoperability standard for manufacturing. The funding will also determine the best path forward to achieve widespread implementation across manufacturing industries.

Technology road mapping is a key component of all funded AMTech projects. Each consortium will engage manufacturers of all sizes, university researchers, trade associations and other stakeholders in an interactive process to identify and prioritize research projects that reduce shared barriers to the growth of advanced manufacturing in the United States. 

Georgia Tech is a national leader in research, education, policy and industrial assistance related to manufacturing. President G.P. “Bud” Peterson serves on the Steering Committee of the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership, and Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute runs the Manufacturing Extension Partnership for the state of Georgia (http://gamep.org/).