National Network for Manufacturing Innovation Program

The vision of the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation is U. S. global leadership in advanced manufacturing. It is a vision of a network of institutes that bring U. S. industry, academia, and government together to solve cross-sector manufacturing challenges that each sector simply cannot solve alone. Each institute is the manufacturing technology development and workforce training leader for a specific technical area. The institutes focus on transforming promising early-stage research into proven manufacturing capabilities that are ready for adoption by U. S. manufacturers. The institutes provide small, mid-sized, and large manufacturers with access to state-of-the-art facilities and equipment. In addition, each institute provides critical workforce training and skills development in these new technologies. By bringing to the table the entire supply chain associated with a particular developing technology, an innovation community emerges that will later form the basis of mature larger-scale manufacturing supply chains located within the United States. This is the first strategic plan for the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI) Program. It describes the vision of the program and its goals. The plan identifies the methods by which these goals will be achieved, including the program's investment strategy, the mechanisms by which investments made by federal agencies will be coordinated, and the metrics by which the program will be assessed.