MIT Announces the Initiative for New Manufacturing
hardware-based “tough tech” start-ups including many with potential to became substantial manufacturing firms.
As developed, the MIT Initiative for New Manufacturing is based around four major themes:
· Reimagining manufacturing technologies and systems: realizing breakthrough technologies and system-level approaches to advance energy production, health care, computing, transportation, consumer products, and more;
· Elevating the productivity and experience of manufacturing: developing and deploying new digitally driven methods and tools to amplify productivity and improve the human experience of manufacturing;
· Scaling new manufacturing: accelerating the scaling of manufacturing companies and transforming supply chains to maximize efficiency and resilience, fostering product innovation and business growth; and
· Transforming the manufacturing base: driving the deployment of a sustainable global manufacturing ecosystem that provides compelling opportunities to workers, with major efforts focused on the U.S.
The initiative has mapped out many concrete activities and programs, which will include an Institute-wide research program on emerging technologies and other major topics; workforce and education programs; and industry engagement and participation. INM also aims to establish new labs for developing manufacturing tools and techniques; a “factory observatory” program which immerses students in manufacturing through visits to production sites; and key “pillars” focusing on areas from semiconductors and biomanufacturing to defense and aviation.
The workforce and education element of INM will include TechAMP, an MIT-created program that works with community colleges to bridge the gap between technicians and engineers; AI-driven teaching tools; professional education; and an effort to expand manufacturing education on campus in collaboration with MIT departments and degree programs.
INM’s leadership team has three faculty co-directors: John Hart, the Class of 1922 Professor and head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering; Suzanne Berger, Institute Professor at MIT and a political scientist who has conducted influential empirical studies of manufacturing; and Chris Love, the Raymond A. and Helen E. St. Laurent Professor of Chemical Engineering. The initiative’s executive director is Julie Diop.
The initiative is in the process of forming a faculty steering committee with representation from across the Institute, as well as an external advisory board. INM stems partly from the work of the Manufacturing@MIT working group, formed in 2022 to assess many of these issues.
The launch of the new initiative was previewed at a daylong MIT symposium on May 7, titled “A Vision for New Manufacturing.” The event, held before a capacity audience in MIT’s Wong Auditorium, featured over 30 speakers from a wide range of manufacturing sectors.
“The rationale for growing and transforming U.S. manufacturing has never been more urgent than it is today,” Berger said at the event. “What we are trying to build at MIT now is not just another research project. … Together, with people in this room and outside this room, we’re trying to change what’s happening in our country.”
“We need to think about the importance of manufacturing again, because it is what brings product ideas to people,” Love told MIT News. “For instance, in biotechnology, new life-saving medicines can’t reach patients without manufacturing. There is a real urgency about this issue for both economic prosperity and creating jobs. We have seen the impact for our country when we have lost our lead in manufacturing in some sectors. Biotechnology, where the U.S. has been the global leader for more than 40 years, offers the potential to promote new robust economies here, but we need to advance our capabilities in biomanufacturing to maintain our advantage in this area.”
Hart adds: “While manufacturing feels very timely today, it is of enduring importance. Manufactured products enable our daily lives and manufacturing is critical to advancing the frontiers of technology and society. Our efforts leading up to launch of the initiative revealed great excitement about manufacturing across MIT, especially from students. Working with industry — from small to large companies, and from young startups to industrial giants — will be instrumental to creating impact and realizing the vision for new manufacturing.”
In her letter to the MIT community today, Kornbluth stressed that the initiative’s goal is to drive transformation by making manufacturing more productive, resilient, and sustainable.
“We want to reimagine manufacturing technologies and systems to advance fields like energy production, health care, computing, transportation, consumer products, and more,” she wrote. “And we want to reach well beyond the shop floor to tackle challenges like how to make supply chains more resilient, and how to inform public policy to foster a broad, healthy manufacturing ecosystem that can drive decades of innovation and growth.”
Peter Dizikes is the social sciences, business, and humanities writer at the MIT News Office. The article is reprinted with permission of MIT News.
