The Intelligent Systems Center will host Dr. Bruce Kramer, a senior advisor in the Division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation of the National Science Foundation. He will discuss strategies for building resilient manufacturing ecosystems through the power of artificial intelligence.

To attend via Zoom, use meeting ID 957 0469 0814, followed by passcode 624460.

Abstract for the seminar:

A recent symposium under the joint auspices of the National Science and Technology Council Subcommittees on Advanced Manufacturing and Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence has produced the outline of a strategy for achieving resilient manufacturing ecosystems through artificial intelligence, https://www.nist.gov/publications/towards-resilient-manufacturing-ecosystems-through-artificial-intelligence-symposium .  That strategy emphasizes the potential to harvest network effects by gathering, classifying, and aggregating manufacturing data at national scale.  Similar models have transformed other industries in which the United States now leads the world but runs counter to the prevailing manufacturing culture, which emphasizes implementing proprietary solutions on the factory floor and keeping information close.  That orientation exaggerates the importance of explicit domain knowledge and ignores the potential of AI methods to extract the implicit manufacturing expertise incorporated in the billions of parts that manufacturers are producing and have previously produced.  It can also provide AI entrepreneurs an opportunity to adapt transformational business models successfully applied in other industries to the $2 trillion per year US manufacturing sector.   The talk will illustrate how an AI-driven manufacturing service infrastructure might operate.

About the speaker:

Dr. Bruce Kramer is a graduate of MIT (S.B., S.M., Ph.D) and has served on the faculties of Mechanical Engineering of MIT and George Washington University.  He is currently the Senior Advisor in the Division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation of the National Science Foundation, coordinating NSF’s participation in the National Advanced Manufacturing Program and co-leading the preparation of the 2014, 2018 and 2022 National Strategic Plans for Advanced Manufacturing by the National Science and Technology Council Subcommittee on Advanced Manufacturing.  Dr. Kramer previously directed NSF’s Divisions of Design, Manufacture and Industrial Innovation and Engineering Education and Centers.  He co-founded Zoom Telephonics of Boston, a producer of communications products marketed under the Zoom and Motorola brands, holds three U.S. patents, and is a Fellow of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers and an International Fellow of the School of Engineering of the University of Tokyo.  He has received the F.W. Taylor Medal of CIRP, the ASME Blackall Award, and the R.F. Bunshah Medal of the ICMC for his contributions to manufacturing research and the Distinguished Service Award, the highest honorary award granted by the NSF.