The Challenge

“The United States’ leadership in manufacturing comes from its 

leadership in advanced technologies and the innovation that 

fuels their discovery and adoption...Sustaining U.S. competitiveness in manufacturing is thus, ultimately, an exercise in staying 

at the forefront of new technologies and continually breaking 

boundaries in both what and how it can be manufactured.” 

—President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, 

2014. NIST’s ability to anticipate and meet the needs of the 

advanced manufacturing industry is critical to the revitalization 

and long-term stability and success of the manufacturing sector.

What NIST Does

NIST has partnered with the U.S. manufacturing sector for more 

than a century, providing the measurement tools and other 

essential technical assistance that existing manufacturers and 

aspiring start-ups need. NIST continues to help manufacturers 

invent, innovate, and produce new products and services more 

rapidly and more efficiently than their competitors around the 

world. NIST’s efforts rely on three major mechanisms:

• Partnerships: NIST’s partnerships with large and small manufacturers, federal agencies, and academic institutions help us 

anticipate and meet the needs of rapidly evolving industries. 

• Standards: NIST’s technical work underpins the development 

of international standards for advanced manufacturers in areas 

such as automation, data exchange, and smart manufacturing. 

• Innovative manufacturing measurements: NIST develops new 

approaches to measurements in emerging technology areas 

including nanomanufacturing, protein therapeutics, and 

advanced materials and makes transformative advances to 

the fundamental measurements relied on by industry and 

government alike.

BY THE 

NUMBERS

70%

of U.S. industry 

research & development is done 

in the manufacturing sector

(Congressional Research Service)

70%

of patents to U.S.

entities are for 

manufacturing

 (National Science 

Board)

786,000+ 

Quality jobs 

created by 

manufacturing 

since 2010

(Bureau of Labor Statistics)

www.nist.gov

ADVANCED MANUFACTURING AT NIST

$2.08 returned to the U.S. 

economy for every $1 spent 

on manufacturing

(MAPI Foundation, 2014)
Program Goals

• Support the Materials Genome Initiative vision to discover, develop, and deploy new materials twice as 

fast as today by developing the necessary infrastructure for materials data and models. 

• Keep the United States at the forefront of new innovations that support manufacturers in diverse areas, 

including smart manufacturing, biomanufacturing, and precision measurements for improved instruments and processes. 

Recent Program Highlights

• The NIST Center for Automotive Lightweighting (NCAL) worked with major automotive and materials 

companies to develop testing protocols for smarter materials that will dramatically reduce the weight of 

new motor vehicles, a $730 billion market sector. 

• NIST is partnering with industry and standards organizations to design a suite of standards for benchmarking additive manufacturing. Also referred to as “3-D printing,” additive manufacturing will revolutionize the creation of complex metal parts for aerospace, energy, and other industries. 

• Recent NIST innovations in measurement include a thermometer based on fundamental physics that is 

faster and lighter than today’s wire thermometers, a “microcomb” clock based on the research of 2012 

Nobel Laureate and NIST physicist David Wineland, and a self-calibrating sensor for measuring tiny forces.

New for 2016

NIST is requesting an additional $21.5 million to focus on:

• Increasing its technical capacity in advanced computational and experimental techniques for materials 

discovery, including new high-throughput tools that will dramatically accelerate the prediction of new 

materials by generating a high volume of quality data and simulation tools.

• Developing sensors for diagnostics and process control in advanced manufacturing of high-value added 

products by expanding capacity in key technical areas including electronics, optics, and photonics. 

• Fostering and accelerating the democratization of manufacturing and the grass-roots entrepreneurship 

trend by providing infrastructure to promote knowledge transfer, facilitate experimentation, and connect 

“makers” to the manufacturing ecosystem.

0

50

100

150

200

Dollars, in millions

Budget

FY 2012

90.8

FY 2013 FY 2014 FY 2015 FY 2016

104.9

134.9 139.5

160.9