Manufacturing, Design, and Innovation

Areas of Interest:

Competitiveness

Project Type:

NAE Program

Latest Update: April 17, 2013
The National Academy of Engineering has started a new initiative to understand the role of manufacturing, design, and innovation in making value for America’s future. Launched by the October 2011 NAE Annual Meeting Forum entitled Making Things: 21st Century Manufacturing and Design, this initiative will consist of a multi-year portfolio of activities—including workshops, symposia, and consensus studies.
Primary Contact: Katie Whitefoot
202.334.1643
kwhitefoot@nae.edu

Transformational changes are occurring in US-based manufacturing, design, and innovation. US manufacturing employment has significantly changed due to increasing globalization, industry restructuring, and automation of the factory floor. At the same time, innovations in technologies and business models—such as additive manufacturing, robotics, biotechnology, and “servitization”—present important opportunities for new value creation in the United States. In 2011 NAE launched the Manufacturing, Design, and Innovation Initiative to understand the effects of these changes on US prosperity and employment and their implications for business practices, research, education, and public policy.

Read about opportunities and challenges to encourage manufacturing, design, and innovation in the United States

Project Status
In Progress
Featured Resources

  • Manufacturing is in a period of dramatic transformation. But in the United States, public and political dialogue is simplistically focused almost entirely on the movement of certain manufacturing jobs overseas to low-wage countries.

  • Transcript of NAE President Charles M. Vest's address at the 2012 National Academy of Engineering Annual Meeting in Washington DC on September 30 2012

  • This is an expanded version of my welcoming address to the "Workshop on Building the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation," September 27, 2012, held at the western conference center of the National Academies, Irvine, California.

More Resources