Consortium Awarded $30 Million for Manufacturing Pilot Program

On August 16, the Obama administration announced both a $30 million award  that may serve as a model for future partnerships geared towards manufacturing innovation to the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute (NAMII) and a "pilot" program for the Administration's National Network of Manufacturing Innovation plan to invest $1 billion "to catalyze a national network of up to 15 manufacturing innovation institutes around the country." NAMII, which was selected in response to a Broad Agency Announcement solicitation, is a consortium including dozens of major government contractors and manufacturing firms, universities, and non-profit organizations which will "co-invest" $40 million to develop additive manufacturing technology (a process by which products and components are manufactured more efficiently using digital models).