Introduction

In March 2011, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed at a White House Ceremony, formally establishing the public-private partnership (PPP) known as the National Digital Engineering and Manufacturing Consortium (NDEMC) for five years. The Council on Competitiveness is the lead partner for the project, in collaboration with a number of other stakeholders . The Consortium is funded by a public-private partnership established by the United States Government and a number of participating OEMs.

The NDEMC’s main purpose is to pilot programs that promote adoption and advancement of modeling and simulation (MS&A) and high performance computing (HPC) among small and medium-sized manufacturers (SMEs) in the United States . The network of OEMs, manufacturers, solution providers, and collaborators that make up the NDEMC will result in accelerated innovation through a powerful collaborative ecosystem of like-minded organizations.

Why is NDEMC important to small manufacturers?

• Allow manufacturers to innovate new products and solutions, solve problems and drive economic competitiveness into the 21st century
• Improved production capabilities through the use of HPC and MS&A will result in improved sales revenue for many SMEs.

What are some benefits of MS&A?

• NDEMC seeks to bring HPC hardware, software, and technical resources to small manufacturers through partnerships with national laboratories and universities.
• Initiative offers expertise, to MS&A software, and the hardware necessary to make MS&A work.
• Organizations that do employ MS&A have consistently seen double-digit increases to productivity, revenue, and employment

But the initial investment is nonetheless too high for SMEs. By lowering the barrier with a shared infrastructure, NDEMC will catalyze a digital industrial commons for the U.S. supply chain.

The NDEMC Model

The NDEMC Difference: Collaborating with OEMs and University Partners Affiliated With NDEMC

University partners, together with the private sector Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) offers the following:

• Provide expertise, onsite consulting, education and training to small and medium sized manufacturers on the use of advanced modeling and simulation.

• Takes place through field trainers, temporarily deployed to the SME sites to assist in truly integrating modeling and simulation into their process.

• NDEMC will also support and promote development of shared infrastructure. Examples include web-based application software gateways, pay-per-use cost models, and online training and certification.

Future Opportunities For NDEMC

The project is initially focused in the Midwestern United States, where an extensive manufacturing base exists and a chance for major economic impact was identified. The Council on Competitiveness and its partners will be working to scale this project into a nationwide network of solution providers and manufacturers leveraging the NDEMC.  The EDA and its partners will study the economic impact of technology-based innovation infrastructure toward boosting the long-term job capacity and competitiveness of U.S. manufacturing and industry.

The collective influence offered by the NDEMC will be able to better guide national policy, certification standards, ISV roadmaps, university curriculum, and a myriad of other topics of interest to U.S. manufacturing’s use of MS&A.

Shareholder OEMs will help identify SMEs for selection.  The recommendation to those OEMs will be to make their selections in order to balance the needs of finding and leveraging the commonalities of problems across many SMEs (including those brought by other OEMs) with exploring sufficient breadth and scope of unique SME issues.  By organizing existing assets, exploiting commonalities, training a new workforce, and systematizing the approach in a sustainable and scalable approach, the NDEMC will be greater than the sum of the parts.