The Advanced Manufacturing Innovation Institute Model
This chapter reviews the centerpiece of U.S. advanced manufacturing policies to date, the advanced manufacturing institutes. While the United States originated the advanced manufacturing approach, it is facing intense competition in this area as numerous other nations pick up the model; it needs these manufacturing institutes to avoid falling behind its industrial competitors. A key goal of the “manufacturing innovation institutes” was to fill a gap in the U.S. innovation system for manufacturing by creating a space where advanced manufacturing could evolve through a collaboration between industry (both small and large firms), universities, and government. To be successful, the institute model needs to continue to find technology areas with application across many industries and in industries with long supply chains that may be slow to take up technology advances.