The U.S. Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) has made 12 cooperative agreement awards totaling approximately $11.0 million as part of its 2017-NIST-MEP-CAP-01 Notice of Funding Opportunities (NOFOs). This funding opportunity is available for MEP Centers to add capabilities to the MEP Program including the development of projects to solve new or emerging manufacturing problems that are not already provided for under a Center’s base MEP award. Project themes for these awards have included new manufacturing technologies of relevance to small and medium-sized manufacturers (SMMs), particularly those related to Industry/Manufacturing 4.0; supply chain management technologies and practices; and workforce intermediary and business services.
California Manufacturing Technology Consulting (CMTC), the MEP Center in California, will lead a project to create a regional approach establishing MEP Centers of Excellence that create cybersecurity competency and expertise. The program will identify MEP Centers as Go-To Collaborative Centers with advanced cybersecurity capabilities and capacity to assist other MEP Centers in the region. The network will establish a presence in key states with large populations of SMMs participating in the DoD supply chain. The cybersecurity offerings will prepare SMMs to meet evolving DoD cybersecurity requirements, particularly preparation for Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC). Regional partners will include Impact Washington (the MEP Center in Washington state) and Manufacturer’s Edge (the MEP Center in Colorado) and will provide services to the Northwest, Southwest and Mountain State MEP Centers, as well as Hawaii and Alaska. The project is funded from 9/1/2020 to 8/31/2021 for $925,000.
CONNSTEP (the MEP Center in Connecticut) will lead Manufacturing Skills for Connecticut, a project to produce an accessible database that describes, maps and analyzes the design, impact and efficacy of manufacturing-related programs across school districts. The database will also demonstrate and foster industry links t ..
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