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Welcome to the New Year. Before looking forward to the future of advanced manufacturing, let's take quick look back to highlight our historical strengths.

An old proverb reminds us, “Necessity is the mother of invention.” Great innovation is the result of facing a challenge and finding a unique way to overcome it. Overcoming challenges often relies on partnership and teamwork to identify and achieve common goals.

Each year since 2007, the Austrian government has brought industry and technology experts from the United States together through the George C. Marshall Visit to Austria Program. The program is designed to connect U.S. change makers together and to highlight Austrian innovations and build a collaborative relationship between the two countries.

On December 5, 1791, the first U.S. Secretary of Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, catapulted manufacturing to the forefront of American politics when he addressed congress on the significance of manufacturing through his Report on the Subject of Manufactures. In his report, Hamilton urged economic freedom by placing a great emphasize on the need to advance the manufacturing sector.

For chemical manufacturers, waste usually equates to a loss – loss of time, money, opportunity, or all of the above. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a byproduct of many manufacturing processes, and also contributes to greenhouse gas emissions. If manufacturers can find a way to convert waste CO2 into different valuable chemicals, they can save money and reduce harmful emissions into the environment.  

Innovation is a collaborative exercise that works best when industry, government, and research institutions put their heads together to identify and solve our nation’s biggest challenges. The Government University Industry Research Roundtable (GUIRR), which provides a unique forum for dialogue among top government, university, and industry leaders of the national science and technology enterprise, recently held a meeting in Washington, DC on October 25-26.

Before we can start tackling the nation’s pressing energy challenges, we first have to discuss what those challenges are and put together a strategy to address them. In the month of October, Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO) Director Mark Johnson participated in two events that aimed to answer the question, “How can communities and the government work together to find solutions to challenges?” At both of these events, Dr. Johnson joined members of academia, local communities, and the government to focus on specific areas in which communities and the government can work together.

2015 was a banner year for Better Plants, with two Challenge partners and eight program partners meeting their goals of reducing energy intensity by at least 25 percent within 10 years. Their leadership brings the total number of energy goal achievers, since the start of Better Plants, to 35. An additional two Challenge partners met their goals under a new Better Plants initiative to save water, an important complement to energy efficiency since energy is used to transport and treat water.

On Tuesday, September 27, Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO) Technology Manager Kelly Visconti joined composites industry leaders at the Composites and Materials Expo (CAMX), the largest, most comprehensive composites and advanced materials event for products, solutions, networking, and advanced industry thinking. Nearly 8,000 people attended the four-day event in Anaheim, California which featured 13 concurrent session tracks, 544 exhibiting companies, and 313 expert speakers, all focused on composites and advanced materials.

Manufacturers rely on applied research and development to verify and validate new ideas, but another test that is just as important is commercialization. How do we take new innovations and bring them to the market so they can make a lasting impact in the way goods are made?

On October 7, 2016, manufacturers across the country opened their doors and hosted events in honor of Manufacturing Day.  Manufacturing Day is a celebration of modern manufacturing meant to inspire the next generation of manufacturers. The day is an opportunity for manufacturers to offer open houses, tours, and demonstrations and to make announcements of new technologies or manufacturing goals.

Today we join communities across the nation in celebrating Manufacturing Day. Manufacturing has been a foundation for the nation since 1791 when Alexander Hamilton, our first Secretary of the Treasury, delivered the “Report on the Subject of Manufactures” to Congress.

From September 21 to 23, energy leaders came together in Washington, DC for the World Energy Engineering Congress (WEEC), the largest energy conference and technology expo specifically for business, industrial, and institutional energy users in the United States.

The Energy Department’s Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO) is investing in programs that ensure the future workforce can meet and exceed the needs of the booming clean energy sector. These educational opportunities set students up for success throughout their careers and help the U.S. remain a global leader in clean energy innovation

We need an energy revolution—a revolution that will mitigate the impact of climate change while providing affordable and reliable energy to everyone, and transition the United States and the world to a clean energy future.

Next week, the World Energy Engineering Congress (WEEC), the largest energy conference and technology expo specifically for business, industrial, and institutional energy users in the United States, will be held in Washington, DC. From September 21 to 23, energy leaders will come together to hear presentations from top industry experts, attend training seminars, explore new technologies and services, and participate in workshops.

The goal of our High Performance Computing for Manufacturing (HPC4Mfg) program is to allow more entrepreneurs and innovators to tap into this technology. We have set out to partner innovative manufacturers from across the country with our world-class supercomputers and the Lab experts who know how to maximize their strength.

Last month, Kendra Kuhl was highlighted as one of the MIT Technology Review’s “35 Innovators Under 35” for her work at Opus 12, a startup in the AMO-sponsored Cyclotron Road program. The award recognizes “disruptors and dreamers” who are “inquisitive and persistent, inspired and inspiring” and “are poised to be leaders in their fields.”

The Guinness Book of World Records is filled with strange, extraordinary, and awe-inspiring feats and accomplishments. This week, the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) snagged a spot in the record book with the world’s largest solid 3D printed object.

Women’s Equality Day (Aug. 26) is an annual celebration of the certification of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote. The Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO) recently sat down with one of its collaborating partners, the Honorable Deborah L.

In June 2016, five projects were selected for Phase I awards in the new Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO) focus area of Atomically Precise Catalysts through the combined Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program.

Have you ever wondered how American small manufacturers stay competitive in today’s global economy? Maybe not, but since 1976 the US Department of Energy has been supporting teams of experts who each day develop the resources needed and provide engineering technical support to these businesses. These teams provide recommendations to help manufacturers operate at the highest level of energy efficiency and productivity. 

Designing manufacturing processes can be a lot like solving puzzles: you know the pieces you’re starting with and you know what the end result should be, but it’s your job to determine the best way to accomplish everything that happens in between. Chemical manufacturing processes that utilize distillation present an exciting and interesting challenge because the puzzle pieces can be put together in a number of different ways and still offer a solution.