21st Century Manufacturing The Role of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program (2013) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
8 Findings and Recommendations
8 Findings and Recommendations
Pages 166-188
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 166... ...
b. Moreover, some analysts argue that maintaining a competitive onshore manufacturing sector and the associated skilled labor and technical institutions are linked and essential for long-term national competitiveness.
|
From page 167... ...
3 NRC staff interviews with center directors in Pennsylvania, California, and Ohio, OctoberNovember 2012. 4 See Appendix B of this report for a survey of the literature on MEP evaluation.
|
From page 168... ...
Appendix B includes a survey of the evaluation literature, and Appendix C-2 documents the written responses of a number of center directors. The study also included a number of field visits by the committee to MEP centers, including centers in California, Georgia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
|
From page 169... ...
9 See, for example, descriptions of California's CMTC, Enterprise Minnesota, Ohio's MAGNET, and Pennsylvania's Catalyst Connection in the National Academies 2011 conference on "Strengthening American Manufacturing: The Role of the MEP." The committee has also conducted additional studies of MEP centers, including the Georgia MEP center. For a description of the overall MEP system, see the NIST MEP homepage at |
From page 170... ...
Limited leverage: NIST's matching contribution is critical to the ability of MEP centers to attract state resources and private revenue generation. Yet, NIST MEP's influence over the management of the individual MEP centers is limited.11 The rigidity of the current matching formula limits, for example, NIST MEP's ability to provide additional incentives to encourage state MEP centers to learn from and adopt best practices from across the system.
|
From page 171... ...
iii. A greater focus on client revenue: To sustain the federal match, the MEP centers currently must overcome declines in state funding through greater reliance on client revenue.13 This matching structure incentivizes the MEP centers to focus on short-term client income rather than on the overall MEP mission.
|
From page 172... ...
b. Demand Risks for New Services: While the new services offered under the Next Generation Strategy are designed to support growth and innovation among the nation's manufacturers, this supply-side push needs to be matched by sustained demand for these services for this strategy to be economically viable for the MEP centers.
|
From page 173... ...
c. Local and regional networks: MEP centers that successfully add new strategy services appear to be especially well connected to the local manufacturing community and other stakeholders (such as local universities)
|
From page 174... ...
Development and rollout of new strategy services are both financially risky and technically demanding. It is therefore important that the experience of individual MEP centers be shared effectively across the network, so that follower centers can benefit from the experience of path-breakers and avoid potential pitfalls.
|
From page 175... ...
ii. Timing of surveys: Deployed only six months after MEP centers submit client information, the NIST MEP survey is arguably premature, and thus unable to capture the impacts of longer-term MEP interventions, especially those resulting from innovation-oriented services.
|
From page 176... ...
23 Interviews with MEP center directors, Pennsylvania, California, and Ohio, and Georgia, as well as during the NRC MEP workshop in Washington, DC, November 29, 2012, and December 6-7, 2012. 24 See the analysis of foreign policies and programs to support manufacturing in Chapter 7.
|
From page 177... ...
Appendix A of this report provides detailed descriptions of the scope and structure of leading national efforts to support small, medium, and large manufacturers. 27 For a review of some of the leading applied research organizations, see Appendix A of this report, which provides an overview of leading programs in Canada, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Taiwan.
|
From page 178... ...
programs: Existing federal programs to facilitate applied research for manufacturing are much more limited in funding, focus, and scope as compared to similar programs in other technologically advanced countries.28 They do not have the same broad impact as do these foreign programs.29 b. Limited commercialization: Promising new technologies developed from basic research conducted in the United States, often with public support, are increasingly commercialized outside the United States with little effect on domestic value added or jobs.
|
From page 179... ...
c. Funding from contract research: Foreign programs often derive a significant fraction of their income from contract research, primarily from the private sector, and receive public funding according to a formula rewarding the volume of industry contract work and support for SMEs.
|
From page 180... ...
ii. Pilot programs: NIST should provide additional funding for pilot programs that assess the performance of MEP centers against relevant comparison groups.
|
From page 181... ...
The proposed shift in the business model has potentially significant financial implications for the MEP centers, given that many of them rely on the revenue stream from current clients to remain in operation and to meet the matching requirements (see below)
|
From page 182... ...
h. Advisory boards: Effective leadership, supported by rigorous advisory boards, or their equivalent, will be essential for NIST MEP and MEP centers in their strategy and operations.
|
From page 183... ...
MEP survey evaluations should be run independently of MEP centers, and the contractor running them should be incentivized to develop and seek an appropriate response rate with high-quality data.
|
From page 184... ...
ii. Additional funding for MEP centers should, in principle be distributed to the centers, but not be entirely on a pro rata basis.
|
From page 185... ...
Secondly, MEP centers should not be required to match new funds at a one to-one rate. Consideration should be given to moving the entire system to a lower match that is more consistent with other Department of Commerce programs and with due attention to maintaining state contributions.
|
From page 186... ...
d. Encourage public-private partnerships: The most successful foreign applied research institutes involve public-private partnerships, a structure which leverages public financial support, research excellence, and private-sector participation to ensure a mission focus on research with commercial and industrial relevance.
|
From page 187... ...
l. Foster entrepreneurialism: Research organizations receiving public funding should include staff with business training that are tasked with linking onsite research to specific commercial applications, including the establishment and strengthening of supply chains, improvement of manufacturing efficiency, and the commercialization of new products.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.