A manufacturing renaissance

Ben Wang, as executive director of the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute, has his sights set on a future of innovation in the US. He and his colleagues at GTMI are working toward a new kind of manufacturing rooted in innovation and systems thinking. A critical component in achieving such goals is to have the government facilitate them. Fortunately for GTMI, a government initiative was already in the works to push advanced manufacturing forward. Myriad recommendations came out of the first phase of AMP, but Wang says three major recommendations stood out creating a friendly business climate in the US, including public policy, tax systems and innovation incentives; driving innovation to create commercial value or societal impact out of basic research; and developing the workforce pipeline.