Overview of NIST Activities in Support of 

Advanced Manufacturing

VCAT, June 11-12, 2013

Dr. Willie E. May

Associate Director for Laboratory Programs and Principal Deputy 

National Institute of Standards and Technology
NIST Activities in Advanced Manufacturing

 NIST Labs

– Precision Measurements

– Bio and Nanomanufacturing

– Smart Manufacturing

– Advanced Materials

– Advanced Neutron Measurements

 National Advanced Manufacturing Program Office

– AMTech

– NNMI

 Manufacturing Extension Partnership

– MTAC

We (NIST) want to make sure that our programs are focused on 

what we “Should Do” rather than what we “Could Do” to strengthen 

U.S. Manufacturing, new Materials Discovery and Innovation."

U.S. Innovation Agenda – NIST has an increasing role

Our first priority is making America a magnet for new jobs and manufacturing. 

Last year, we created our first manufacturing innovation institute in Youngstown, Ohio. 

A once-shuttered warehouse is now a state-of-the art lab where new workers are mastering 

the 3D printing that has the potential to revolutionize the way we make almost everything. 

There’s no reason this can’t happen in other towns. 

So tonight, I’m announcing the launch of three more of these manufacturing hubs, where 

businesses will partner with the Departments of Defense and Energy to turn regions left 

behind by globalization into global centers of high-tech jobs. 

And I ask this Congress to help create a network of 15 of these hubs and guarantee that the 

next revolution in manufacturing is made right here in America. 

President Obama

State of the Union Address 

February 13, 2013

$ +37 M

increase in intramural 

base funding for 

Advanced Manufacturing 

and Materials research 

programs over past two 

years
• Advanced Manufacturing and Materials (+$50M)

− Measurement science and data infrastructure for advanced 

materials (Materials Genome Initiative) (+$10M)

− Supporting manufacturing with emerging technologies 

(+$20M)

− Precision measurements for manufacturers (+10M)

− Measurement science to enable the integration and use of 

smart manufacturing (+$10M)

• Cybersecurity

• Advanced Communications

• Cyber-Physical Systems

• Disaster Resilience

• Forensic Science 

• Strengthening Technology Transfer

President’s FY 2014 Budget Request for NIST

Continues Support for Advanced Manufacturing

Credit: Tomlin/NIST
NIST Chief Manufacturing Officer

Roger Kilmer has been reassigned from Director of the Manufacturing 

Extension Program to the position of NIST Chief Manufacturing Officer.

In this capacity, drawing upon his 40 years of experience at NIST, he will 

provide:

• cross-organizational coordination within NIST’s manufacturing programs

• strategic advice to the NIST Director and ADLP on planning, operations and 

execution of laboratory programs that support manufacturing

It is important for NIST to have a process in place that carefully considers industry needs 

and inputs when selecting and planning the projects to pursue. NIST interaction with industry 

is strong, and with further expansion and enhancement, it could provide even more mutual 

benefits and alignment ... Recent NRC Review of Manufacturing-related Programs at NIST
Advanced Manufacturing:

Precision Measurements for Manufacturers 

Credit: NIST

Credit: Tomlin/NIST

This program supports a new paradigm in self-calibration capabilities 

for U.S. manufacturers 

New self-calibrating measurements are important:

• Current methods for calibrating machinery and 

assessing quality can introduce cost and time delays 

• Applies to virtually all manufacturing processes

• New precision measurement capabilities would provide 

competitive advantage to U.S. manufacturers 

NIST will:

• Leverage initial successes, i.e., miniature atomic clocks, 

into a range of measurements (electrical quantities, 

pressure, temperature)

• Provide on-chip reference measurements to improve 

the quality and reliability of manufacturing processes 
“Embedded Standards / NIST on a Chip?”

An integrated program to develop and deploy SI-traceable measurements and physical 

standards that are:

• Flexible

• Provide a broad range of SI-traceable measurements and standards (often quantum-based) 

relevant to the particular customer needs / applications.

• One, few, or many measurements from a single small form package.

• Manufacturable - Potential for production costs commensurate with the applications.

• Low cost for broad deployment; or

• Acceptable cost for high-value applications.

• Deployed in the customer’s factory floor, lab, device, system, home, anywhere... 

• Usable - Usually small size (important exceptions), low power consumption, 

rugged, easily integrated and operated.

FY13 activities include:

• Photonic sensing of thermodynamic quantities

Replace obsolete, limited performance resistance thermometers with easily deployable, robust photonic 

systems (fiber systems with chip-based sensors).

• Quantum-based electrical standards

Expand capabilities of existing chip-based voltage measurements and prepare for new measurement 

technologies for current and other electrical quantities.

• Atom-based measurements in vapor cells

Dramatic improvement in deployed measurements of time, length, magnetic field and other quantities.

• Optical / photonic input and output

Microscale laser frequency comb technologies to transduce “on chip” measurement to user-friendly 

quantities and sensed parameters to “chip measurable” quantities.

NIST is building on its earlier successes to:

• Develop much broader range of deployable SI-traceable measurements.

• Integrate multiple measurements into single devices.
Advanced Manufacturing: Measurement Science and Standards to 

Support Emerging Technologies in Bio and Nanomanufacturing 

Barriers exist for full commercial exploitation of manufacturing 

processes integrating emerging technologies 

• Lack of nanomanufacturing and nanomaterial characterization tools 

means significant delay and high cost of product development

• Lack of measurements to characterize the environmental, health, 

and safety risks of engineered nanomaterials

• Biotechnology medicines are the fastest growing category of health 

care spending, but manufacturing processes are not optimized

NIST will:

• Characterize manufactured nanomaterials to enable accurate 

assessment of health and environmental risks

• Develop innovative measurement methods to ensure product 

quality during high-speed processing of nanocomposite systems

• Better tools to determine safety and efficacy of biopharmaceuticals 

including characterization of 3-D protein structure and glycosylation

• Support new manufacturing paradigms that use cells as factories

This program supports manufacturers in overcoming barriers to the high volume 

production of transformative materials and products based on emerging trends in 

nanotechnology and biotechnology
Advanced Manufacturing: Smart Manufacturing

NIST work in this area will provide U.S. manufacturers with foundations for 

optimizing production and quality.

Smart Manufacturing refers to production systems at the equipment, factory, and 

enterprise levels that integrate cyber and physical systems to enable innovative production, 

products, and systems of products. This requires infrastructural advances to enable:

• smart operations systems to monitor, control, and optimize performance 

• systems engineering-based open architectures and standards, and 

• embedded and/or distributed sensing, computing, communications, actuation, and control 

technologies

NIST will:

• Develop measurements and standards for a quality 

measurement system focusing on automated inprocess quality monitoring and control

• Develop a testbed which integrates a systems 

architecture framework and an open standards 

platform for facilitating the simultaneous 

engineering of the computational (cyber) and 

physical elements of manufacturing systems
Advanced Manufacturing: Measurement Science and 

Data Infrastructure for Advanced Materials 

• In the same way that silicon in the 70s led to the modern IT 

era, advanced materials could fuel multibillion dollar 

industries in energy, national security, and human welfare.

• This effort will provide critical links needed to realize the 

vision of the Materials Genome Initiative (MGI), aimed at 

accelerating industrial innovation by significantly reducing 

the timeline from discovery to commercial deployment for 

new materials. 

• NIST will support the MGI and enable advanced 

materials by developing:

o Computational and validated databases, data 

assessment tools, and standards

o Modeling and simulation tools 

o Mechanisms for exchange of information

This program is focused on enabling and accelerating the creation and 

manufacture of innovative, advanced materials via the integration of 

modeling and simulation, experimental tools, and digital data/informatics.

Atomistic 

simulations of 

materials used in 

automotive lightweighting
Expanding NIST’s Impact in Advanced Manufacturing 

with Neutron Measurements
Expanding NIST’s Impact in Advanced Manufacturing with 

Neutron Measurements

CANDOR

Chromatic Analysis Neutron Diffractometer Or 

Reflectometer

Applications

Soft materials manufacturing

Surface adhesion of bio-pharmaceuticals

Interactions between proteins and biomembranes

Optimized for the kinetics of 

molecular processes on 

surfaces and at interfaces
Expanding NIST’s Impact in Advanced Manufacturing 

with Neutron Measurements

Future Plans:

• Develop Strain Mapping Diffractometer

• Develop Materials Diffractometer

• Upgrade Residual Stress Diffractometer

• Upgrade uSANS

• Upgrade High resolution powder diffractometer 
• Update on NIST Extramural Programs in Advanced Manufacturing 

Frank Gayle, Deputy Director, Advanced Manufacturing National Program Office

 Alex Folk, Program Development Office Director, Manufacturing Extension Partnership

• A Model for Working with Manufacturers – NIST Center for Automotive 

Lightweighting (NCAL)

Tim Foecke, Director, NCAL and Leader, Materials Performance Group, Materials 

Science and Engineering Division, Material Measurement Laboratory

• Lab Tour of the NCAL

Tim Foecke, Director, NCAL and Leader, Materials Performance Group, Materials 

Science and Engineering Division, Material Measurement Laboratory

We’ll continue our discussions with: