Department of Defense awards Interdisciplinary Center for Advanced Manufacturing $8.9M for smart manufacturing initiatives
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The adoption of Smart Manufacturing is quickly becoming a necessity for small and medium-sized manufacturers, or SMMs, looking to stay competitive in the Industry 4.0 age. For those SMMs in the national security ecosystem, it's no longer a suggestion, it's a requirement.Enter, once again, the Interdisciplinary Center for Advanced Manufacturing Systems, or ICAMS, at Auburn University.Established in 2020 to help SMMs bridge the digital divide that threatens to render 85% of the American industrial base obsolete over the next decade, the center will use a significant portion of its latest and largest award from the Department of Defense’s, or DoD, Office of Industrial Policy’s Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment, or IBAS, program, $8.9 million, to leverage its research and outreach efforts promoting advanced manufacturing in small and medium manufacturing operations in the defense industrial base."We have to provide SMMs a better understanding of the processes behind new guidelines and best practices necessary to engage in secure work for the DOD," said principle investigator (PI) Greg Purdy, assistant professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering. "With this grant, we can equip them with the tools necessary to produce parts in a classified manufacturing environment."
Submitted by: Jeremy Henderson
