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Introduction

The National Materials and Manufacturing Board of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine hosted a 3-day workshop event to explore research and development (R&D) opportunities and challenges for convergent manufacturing. A convergent manufacturing platform is defined as a system that synergistically combines heterogeneous materials and processes (e.g., additive, subtractive, and transformative) in one platform. The platform is equipped with unprecedented modularity, flexibility, connectivity, reconfigurability, portability, and customization capabilities. The result is one manufacturing platform that is easily reconfigured to output new functional devices and complex components for systems.¹ This manufacturing system also converges the integration of physical components and digital models along with sensor networks for process monitoring and production.

Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense, the three workshops in the series were held virtually on November 15, 2021; November 19, 2021; and November 22, 2021 (see Box 1.1 for the statement of task, and see the Appendix for the workshop agendas). The workshop series focused on the following three overarching topics: (1) key areas for R&D investments that will enable the readiness and commercial development of convergent manufacturing; (2) application areas for convergent manufacturing, with an emphasis on future Army and related civilian applications; and (3) approaches for the design of a convergent manufacturing platform.

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¹ Convergence in a unified manufacturing platform enables progress beyond Industry 4.0, with the use of both digital and physical footprints as expanded on in Chapter 2.

Workshop speakers and participants convened from academia, federal agencies, and industry to discuss state-of-the-art materials design and manufacturing techniques as well as innovative potential applications, with particular attention to resilient design and multifunctional materials (Workshop 1); process hybridization in one platform (Workshop 2); and systems and part design at the point of need as well as issues related to the supply chain and sustainability (Workshop 3).

This proceedings is a factual summary of what occurred during the workshop series. The planning committee’s role was limited to organizing and convening the workshops. The views expressed in this proceedings are those of the individual workshop participants and do not necessarily represent the views of the participants as a whole, the planning committee, or the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.