Baby Boom!
There have been several MMTA babies over the summer: congratulations to Tamara Alliot (MMTA), David Gussack (MMTA Board and Exotech), Gregory Buchheit (MMTA Board and F.W. Hempel) and Colin Strang (CCMA).
New MMTA Website and Crucible
Over the coming weeks you will notice changes to the MMTA website and in particular to the format of the Crucible. Members will still receive their monthly print edition, and now that there’s so much excellent content being produced every month, we want to allow members to search for past articles on specific topics of interest, and access the online content from any of the current and past editions easily. The new online format will no longer be a simple pdf, but will be an archive of our current edition and all our previous Crucible articles, as well as (in time) other materials of interest. Some of this content will still be freely available to our valued non-member readership, as we still want the wider community to be informed of what the MMTA and its Members are doing, but some content will now be Members-only in future.
We hope you like the changes, and look forward to hearing from you with any suggestions.
REMADE Institute
The MMTA is delighted to announce that it is to be an Affiliate Member of the REMADE Institute and is supporting its submission to the US Department of Energy. See below for more on the Institute’s goals and remit. US Members wishing to offer their support to the Institute, should contact them directly for more information.
On June 20, 2016, the United States Department of Energy (DOE), under the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI) program, released a $70M Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) to solicit proposals from industry-academic-government teams for the creation on of an industry-driven manufacturing institute focused on increasing material use efficiency manufacturing through reuse, recycling, and remanufacturing. RIT is leading proposal team under the name “The REMADE Institute” to submit a plan by the September 28, 2016 deadline. RIT’s plan:
- addresses industry-defined, pre-competitive challenges, focus on the deployment and adoption of technologies deemed critical to U.S. manufacturing competitiveness (i.e., the institute will not focus on basic research but rather taking technologies that have been proven in a lab and deploying them to address material efficiency challenges;
- unifies the top industry and academic subject matter experts across the US on the development new tools, technologies and novel approaches to using fewer material resources and optimizing their use throughout the product life-cycle, including Idaho National Lab, Argonne National Lab, University of Illinois, and other leading universities, national labs and industrial partners, such as Purdue University, University of Utah, University of Wisconsin, Yale University, Oak Ridge National Lab, Xerox, and Caterpillar;
- will propose to make significant reductions in embodied energy and emissions through material use efficiency across all areas of manufacturing — from design, production, and end of life via recycling and remanufacturing.
- targets four materials — e-waste, fibers, polymers and metals.
- Includes a technical roadmap of manufacturing problems in reuse, recycling and remanufacturing present and identify foundational projects in the targeted focus areas and a plan to fund projects over the 5-year funding term that align with the roadmap
- will match the $70M in federal funding by 1:1 making at least $140M dedicated to the Institute mission.
If you are interested in becoming involved in the Institute or want to learn more about the benefits of joining – visit our website. Key benefits of Institute membership:
- Engage — Get actively involved in important issues in the REMADE Institute’s strategic planning, road-mapping, and development of projects.
- Build New Relationships — Network with experts in the composites industry during our semi-annual members meetings.
- Reduce Material Use Costs — Leverage investments of over $140 million focused on accelerating the development of advanced material use efficiency technologies over the next five years…
We hope you enjoy this month’s Crucible.
Best Regards, Maria
Maria Cox, General Manager
