Training, talent, federal policies seen as keys to growth.

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The Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP) Steering Committee, recently released a report outlining recommendations for spurring investment and attaining U.S. leadership in advanced manufacturing. Capturing Domestic Competitive Advantage in Advanced Manufacturing, grouped 16 recommendations around three pillars for boosting advanced manufacturing: Enabling innovation; securing the talent pipeline; and improving the business climate. 

The report recommendations include a call to establish a national network of manufacturing innovation institutes; an emphasis on investment in community college training of the advanced manufacturing workforce; an approach to evaluate platform manufacturing technologies for collaborative investment; a plan to reinvigorate the image of manufacturing in America; and proposals for trade, tax, regulatory and energy policies that would level the global playing field for domestic manufacturers.

The report’s three pillars and recommendations for boosting advanced manufacturing are consistent with AMT’s Manufacturing Mandate principles to incentivize R+D and encourage innovation; improve global competitiveness; and build a 21st century Smartforce.

The AMP committee is co-chaired by Dow Chemical chairman and CEO Andrew Liveris, MIT president and Susan Hockfield. The AMP report was endorsed by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), an advisory group of leading scientists and engineers that advises the president and makes policy recommendations in areas where science, technology, and innovation are key to strengthening our competitiveness. The president launched AMP last year on the advice of PCAST.

AMP is a national effort to bring industry, universities and the federal government together to invest in emerging technologies that create manufacturing jobs and boost global competitiveness, particularly in industries critical to national security. The partnership pools federal dollars from existing funds and future appropriations of various federal agencies to boost innovation in manufacturing technologies, including high-powered batteries, advanced composites, metal fabrication, bio-manufacturing and alternative engineering. The goal is to enhance defense-critical industries; build U.S. leadership in next-generation robotics; increase energy efficiency in manufacturing; and develop technologies to help improve manufacturing efficiency.