MDF Overview (Text Version)
This is a text version of the Manufacturing Demonstration Facilities (MDF) overview video, originally presented on March 12, 2012 at the MDF Workshop held in Chicago, Illinois.
Speaker
Dr. Leo Christodoulou, Program Manager, Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO)
DR. LEO CHRISTODOULOU: As part of a, sort of a new to the government group, I really like to get things done. So, let me talk to you a little bit about the implementation of this national strategy in the context of DOE and specifically the energy efficiency and renewable energy group and my own office, Advanced Manufacturing Office.
So, I laid this out for you just so now, go back into the details, okay? We, I think the excellent presentation by Mike has given you an idea of what we feel is important so what are we going to do about it? And let me walk you through what our own office is trying to do, because we can only execute programs and ideas that have been authorized and appropriated by Congress, of course. And our programs fall within my office fall within this two categories. They fall within a group that we call Research Development and Demonstration. And the key words here for me, actually they don't appear here are manufacturing relevant and production pertinent. These are the important things. We found primarily our focus of investments in a TRL 3 to 7, 8 in the first group. These are concepts and ideas that go beyond the research, the basic research. That's not what their trans manufacturing office does. We want to make sure that the work that we invest in results in manufacturing relevant knowledge and data that will enable somebody to make an investment make a decision for an investment in manufacturing. That's typically more than just demonstrating something can be done. It's typically something that says we can manufacture it, this is its life cycle costs, this is how you would repair it, this is how you would support it in service and so on. All of these things (inaudible) how you finance it and so on. So, we are very interested in not the best that you can do, not even like the average quality of the product, we want, we're interested in bringing the minus (inaudible) the bottom, the, what can you make at an affordable cost, high quality that is globally competitive. So, we are interested in that part of it. You have to work (inaudible).
So that's our first activity. And, the second activity for us, this is sort of the deployment of technologies for energy efficiency. And these are known technologies. These are actually all things that we know about, these are TRL 9. These are Technology Relevance Level 9. These are things that we know about. These are good practices that we want permeated through the whole manufacturing sector. Okay? So, it is really important for you to understand that our mission is, in fact, in that sweet spot of applied research development and demonstration, demonstration of the meaningful scale. Not in a test tube.
So, let me tell you exactly what my office now are making this specific and real. What will we invest in? My office will invest in sort of five major areas. One of them is sort of the so-called foundational transformative keystone technologies. And some of you may be familiar with our, unfortunately, it's called EMI, IMI, same acronym, Innovative Manufacturing Initiative. This is a call that we had out in 2011. Massive response and we will be announcing the winners of that first round within three weeks, I hope, two weeks.
So, this is specific investments we will be making with groups of people or individual companies or institutions, and so on and that's going on. The second one, which is pertinent to this discussion, is the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership Initiatives. And there will be several of this, MDF's this one already, the institutes and the DOE hubs that some of you are familiar with. And there will be announcements in these areas coming up this year. Will also have some manufacturing challenges. We already have some Education and Training activities that are going on and there was a solicitation for that earlier. This fiscal year we selected 24 universities for our centers and we have, in existence, state and local government programs that we jointly fund. State that we fund, state and local governments for energy efficiency and, if you have specific interests in any of those areas, please don't hesitate to contact my office.
The primary discussion, of course, today is item number two, Advanced Manufacturing Partnership Initiatives, the general term. So, what is, what is an Innovation Institute? It's a manufacturing ecosystem, right? So, what, what how does a manufacturing ecosystem work for us? Well, I would like to come out at the very end. Let's look what we would like this thing to be at the end of the day. I mean, it's hard to put something in place if you don't know where you're going. So, what are we looking for? I want you to look at the right hand side. What we are looking for is a globally competitive US based industry. We are looking to have a globally competitive, low cost, high quality industry that can compete products, tools, whatever might be that's competitive in the world, ok? We are investing this money, on our behalf, and we want the country to show an increased GDP. We want the outcome of these ecosystems to be a contribution to the Gross Domestic Product. We want to see new employment in this , good jobs. And we want to see and foster new technologies that will enable us, just like the aluminum industry, just like the airplane industry that I talked about before, just to create a new technologies that will take us into the next century and beyond. And, you know, from our point of view, within the Department of Energy, energy efficiency and decreased reliance on imported oil are critical elements in our thinking along the new technologies here. You know, we've been taught that energies, you know that the energy challenge is our new sputnik. We need an all hands effort to solve that problem.
So, how are we going to achieve this? Well, we are going to achieve this, now go to the far left. We are going to achieve this by hopefully, by ideas and innovations from everybody. Innovation is not just a privilege (?) of elite universities. Innovation is the () of everybody. Everybody who has a great idea. The person on the manufacturing floor who looks around and says 'there is a better way to do this'. Everybody. We want to encourage that. We want to encourage people to innovate. I can cite, and perhaps in the question and answer period later on, I will give you some specific examples from previous experience from when we actually went to manufacturing. To actually produce large quantities, we had to change the process completely, because of the scale of issued encountered. And those innovations came from the people that were on the shop floor. Okay? So, that's where it's coming from. It's coming from this incredible pool of innovation we have in our academia and private and public sectors and small companies and so on.
So, how does it work? Well, it's always about money at the end of the day, right? I mean there's always somebody that has to invest in this. And the reality is, there's never enough money for all of the things that we want to do. That is the reality of life. I wish we had all the money in the world to do all the things that we wanted to do. It's not possible. So, we need to form partnerships. The U.S. Government, the States and industry and private investments. We are all partners in this and we have to set up means where everybody wins. The USG's sort of goal here is to have a globally competitive US based industry without any preference to any particular company or particular individual. Just the broad based capability. The States, obviously, all manufacturing is local and we look for them to capitalized on local talent and local infrastructure and whether they have natural gas or they have a biotech industry or an electronics industry or a composites industry locally in infrastructure. And we know that economic development folks pay close attention to that. Industry and private investment, of course, are (real) to make money and make profitable, to make profits. And we applaud that. We want that. We want industry to be profitable and people to be well off to make investments and to continue to make investments in the area. So, we think and this is a proposal. We think that these collaborations between academia, industry, national laboratories or other private labs and so on, and small and medium enterprises can work around a common core which we call Manufacturing Demonstration Facility. I will stress, once again, and this is our proposal to you to comment on and critique. We need a central core, a keystone to hang everybody around. So, what is a vision about this MDF's? How can they help anchor, if you wish, this ecosystem? We're looking for a place where people can create, can collaborate around some targeted technical areas. We understand that not everybody is going to everything. There may be one area and we have some topics here just these ideas for you. But we want to have this sort of have this focal areas. It could be biotechnology. Could be joining. Could be joining, welding. I don't know. Something like that. It could be out of the autoclave composites. It could be some area like this. There is a central theme around which people will jointly work.
The example I would like to give is sort of the Bell Labs example where there's this multitude of engineers, obviously world class scientists, like our own Dr. Steven Chu, where they were all working together with really one common goal which was, in the early days at least, to put signals down a noisy line. How do you do that? I mean they were working all over the place but that was the one goal. They had a central theme that they were working on. Now, in this Manufacturing Demonstration Institutes they are not the sort of ordinary of user facilities that we had in the past. That we have experience with. These are manufacturing related activities. This is where you worry about how to make it, how to minimize the defects, how to increase productivity, to reduce energy and how you can define the critical attributes that make a decision. So, we tried our hand at this graphic and Kelly Visconti will talk to this in a little bit more detail later on. So this is not the first time you will see this graphic. But let me walk you through, in concept first, and we will take a break, the 10:30 break and we will get back and talk a little more about it.
This blue area, which is the Manufacturing Demonstration Facilities, we're thinking that this is, we're thinking, we're proposing that this is a physical entity. It could be in one building, it could be in multiple buildings, but it is something that exists. Okay? There are two sides to it. There's a left and right and top to bottom. Okay? So, let me see if I can try and work you through it at some very high level. Within this facility, there are actual manufacturing processes, technologies, design capabilities, characterization capabilities and so on. And maybe process control facilities. Maybe things with in-situ metrology and so on capability. Let's say that you would like to come and make a product. You want to develop a product. And you will have an idea for a new material or a new product. You come into this facility and you can use the capabilities that exist in this facility. Now I am using this term facility now in a broader term since it's a physical entity but it doesn't have to be in one place, necessarily. It would be nice if it were. But anyway, so anyway, let's say you want to make something at a manufacturing. You can try, there are several vendors of those machines and they will all be there. You can use them. Maybe you can use just a casting technology, somewhat of a legacy manufacturing technique but a very good one. Okay? Or you can use a virtual capability like this MDF has a library, essentially, of the capabilities that exist out in the wider industry. For example, if somebody has a huge forging press somewhere we are not going to be able to put this huge forging press into the facility. However, we can put a model of the forging process. We don't need to know the ins and outs, the details of the forging capabilities. All we need is the inputs and the outputs. We'll respect the intellectual property of the people that have that and we'll talk to that a little bit.
In any case, here you can come in with your product. You try different, different methodologies for manufacturing your product or your material. You characterize it. Perhaps you design it. You characterize it. In the output for you, it's a business case for manufacturing new products. It's not just the demonstration. It's not just the little widget but it's something that tells you something about the production rate. Who could be your partner? The risk. The cost estimates. The case for crystallization. So, the output here is a business plan, hopefully, that you can take to somebody or to your own management to the State, to Wall Street, to whoever to give you a business case for manufacturing, for new manufacturing. The outcome here is not a demo, it's a business case. Okay? That is really important. Now you, let's say you choose one of these processes is the one you choose. We do not, the Manufacturing Demonstration Facilities, does not tell you what kind of arrangement you do with that particular individual. It's up to you. You interact with the process or the manufacturing vendor in any way you want. You can license it, you can buy that machine, you can do whatever you want. We do not care. All we are enabling you to do here is, hopefully, is to create a knowledge so that you can move forward.
Now, let's take the top to bottom. The vertical direction. If you are a developer of processes of a new tool, new manufacturing processes you would take your new tool and put it inside this facility or we would get it inside this facility. So, people coming in from the left would actually be able to use it. Okay? And the outcome for you, you would find some customers, hopefully. You would price it efficiently well, so that people want to use it. And the outcome for you might well be equipment sales or control systems or the tools, the production enabling products. The tools, you could sell the tools. So, in both cases we have the crossroads, or the commons, if you wish. So the idea here is that this is a meeting place. This is a meeting place for processors and people that want to make things. To work together to make something in manufacturing.
Now, this is simple graphic. Clearly, there are lots of words we can say about this and you can imagine how this might work or not work. You can imagine a third dimension in this, which is the universities coming in, the knowledge. For example, in the process control, the metrology. You know, if somebody was developing, I don't know () to second lasers or some other techniques for fluorescence techniques for measuring in situ, adaptive methodology controls all of that stuff could come in here. The multiple sort of inputs to this. Okay? So, we want an infrastructure. This infrastructure has to be such that people can come in, in a non-competitive IP protected situation with a trusted agent, trusted management team, if you wish, that is going to respect everybody's IP and make this happen so that people feel comfortable doing this.
You say that is not going to be easy. This is not going to be easy to put in place. And the answer is no. And you know what? If it was easy, anybody could do it. That's why we're doing it. To paraphrase another President, we're doing this not because it's easy, we're doing it because it's hard. That's why I'm standing here somewhat exposed; giving some ideas that you can punch a million holes into the thing. But somebody has to do it. Somebody has to step up and say let's do something like this. It's not going to be easy but if we work on it we can make it happen. And it is only when we collaborate like that and the role of government is to enable this pre-competitive, this infrastructure, if you wish, in a sense, for these facilities and these capabilities, spread around the country, 10, 12, I don't know how many we are going to be able to do. We are going to start with one, okay, or two. But certainly we will do that over the next few years in order to promote this type of collaboration so we can go forward.
Now, they don't all have to be the same. In fact, the whole idea of this Manufacturing Demonstration Facilities for me and the ecosystems, the institutes, that are spawned around from them, if I go back here, these should really be unique to the region. And they need to be unique to the technology. So you decide what the keystone technology, if you wish, what the foundational focal point is and that will determine the structure. Okay? And some of them will be, there perhaps, I don't know this, some of them will be very much in the basis of the user facility kind of model. You know, where there is a facility and people use it and go away. Maybe that's one. I don't know. Another one might be more in the semi-tech model, kind of idea, where it's very industrially based, you know, very, and anything in between. We are not prescriptive as to the structure of this. We want your ideas. We understand that a region in the Midwest or southwest, southeast, northeast, northwest, east, west, whatever it is, they may be different, and that's okay? Okay? And there may in fact be more than one MDF/pilot in any given domain. A little bit of competition doesn't hurt. Why not? You know, a little bit of redundancy is good so we don't get a systematic error in the system and everything falls down.
So, we're looking for a number of these to be implemented over the next few years. It does depend on our ability to sort of have the money for all of this. We are looking for significant cost share from the States, industry and because that's the only way we know that people are serious about this. We all vote with our money, right? I mean that's how we vote. We vote we're investing in these things. If we do not, our expectation is, within my office at least, 50% cost share is sort of the minimum. And anybody who offers more gets more points. Right? I mean it would be nice, I mean if you think about that, what that means is that industry, the States, the local government, economic development boards, have made a decision that these are important things for them to do, for their local expertise.
So, we offer this. There will be a little bit more discussion on this later which will talk to the more specifics, the IP so you can ask me some questions, now if you wish, and I will take some questions in a minute. But I do want to sort of share this with you and start you thinking and I will invite everybody, including people on the Webcast that have questions, to forward them to us and we will go from that.
And with that, I think this is the overall sort of concept that we have and I spoke a little bit about the MDF, in the middle of this. I will leave this graphic up but for the next 10 minutes or so, I will take some questions, both from the floor here and from the Web. So, please, if you have a question, come up to one of the microphones, if you are here, and articulate it and I will do my best. If I cannot answer it in real time, I promise we will record it and I will get an answer to you. Thank you.
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Q: (inaudible)
A: We will post this presentation on the Web, shortly after this meeting. Give us a day or two to do it.
Q: Is the intention for these to become self-sustaining either after a period of time, either from either usage fees derived from utilizing activities and that, and then the other thing I wondered is can those facilities pursue other government project activities to help underwrite the facilities/projects?
A: Yes, the answer to those questions is both yes. We do expect this facilities to become self-sustaining within a period of time, 3 to 5 years time frame. We understand that it takes time for people to build up credibility and so on and user fees, and so on, might be one way. And certainly we will encourage the institutes to be competitive not just from federal funds but also, perhaps, from industrial funds, you know to go after the big companies and do work for others, under appropriate conditions. To that degree, having a robust IP protection plan and the different categories would be useful. We've started an element of this with Oakridge National Labs and Craig Blue who is here, can answer some questions from that. But, you know, just having different categories of how you will....in a plan, a simple plan, hopefully, how you are going to handle specific issues with IP up front. So it's published, so people know ahead of time. So not every interaction has to be a separately negotiated IP plan. That would take a long time, we think.
Q: You've got national labs pretty prominent in this. What if we live in a region where we are thinking of putting up a center and we are nowhere near a national lab. Is virtual participation okay or does not having a lab detract from the proposal?
A: Not having a lab does not detract from the proposal. You know, the entity, Mike spoke a little bit about this, the entity has to present a case of how people will be able to come and participate, how they will have the facilities and so on, but a lab is not necessary. We understand, the role of the labs is important only in so much as they have both physical and intellectual capital, that we all have invested as taxpayers over the years and the degree that we can leverage those both in reality, or virtually or by connectivity we would encourage that. But there is no absolute requirement.
Q: So, I understand your next slide, Manufacturing Demonstration Facility being a physical entity with those features....going back to the previous slide...can you say a little bit more, sort of a related question to the previous one, is this also, do you envision this as a physical one, physical entity or is this a network of organizations that participate in the MDF?
A: Good question. Our initial thinking is this does not have to be a physical entity. I mean we, it could be, but it doesn't have to be. A network would work. For example, I mean I will not, we cannot predict that a particular technology, say in academia, you know it might be on the west coast, east coast, and the MDF's is in the middle of the country. I mean, that's fine. That's okay. I think the ecosystem here is only in the frame of reference of the activity of the domain. Okay? So, if you going to work on, I don't know, low cost carbon fiber or low cost composites, if it turns out that the capabilities in the country are scattered throughout the country, that's fine. They still belong to that ecosystem they are just connected by the information highway. And that's fine. That would work fine. But perhaps there is, within the second system, perhaps there is a facility where people can go and do the design the prototyping, the evaluation of the new, whatever the technology might be. We're not prescriptive. We're going to wait for you to sort of help us present the best case that you can. And if it's distributed, it's fine.
Q: One of the things I struggle with is how industry or the private sector gets its return on investment. I can think of a number of indirect ways that they can through strengthening the workforce or, perhaps, enabling technologies that might reduce manufacturing costs. But can you maybe elaborate on what is the thinking on how we can entice a good investment for the private sector?
A: Yeah, I think that is a good question and let me try my hand on that. So, let's imagine we've decided to have an ecosystem around, well, let me use this; a natural gas well derived products. I chose my words very carefully there.....natural gas well derived products. More than natural gas. Out of the natural gas well lots of other things come out....ethane, maybe, or other things, oil, water, heavy metals. What if somebody put together a facility or ecosystem like this that had a very efficient separation technology that separated all those products in real time or near real time, very efficiently, and fed them into, by that separation, allowed them to be then used as precursors to industry? So, what I would think here would be that that fundamental technology then spawns lots of industry. It spawns, people, perhaps, can then recover the heavy metals and sell them, efficiently. Maybe the gas people use the gas maybe the other products turn into chemical precursors and so on. But the lynch pin of that, of that ecosystem now, is the ability to separate the products. Perhaps. Maybe that's one way to do it.
Another one I think about, perhaps, is wide band gap materials. Let's say we had an ecosystem that developed on developing the growth, the production of low defect wide band gap materials. Wide band gap materials could have tremendous impact, and you'll see some of this later, in LED's, lighting, photovoltaics, and motors, powerful electronics. So, if there was some technology that we developed together, pre-competitively, on some new wide band gap material technologies, then different people could use it for different parts of the market and sell it. They would build a business plan based on the core capability.
Now, the intellectual property would have to be respected and, in some cases, it would be shared by everybody who contributed to that demonstration. In the demonstration facility, perhaps, or maybe it would be licensed, cross-licensed and so on. But that's the way I look at it. I look at it as making investments in those technologies that essentially are at the tipping point. And once we make those investments they reach a maturity level that lots of people can use and it actually spawns competition and growth of new industries.
I would like, for titanium for example, what if we had, you know, titanium today is made the same way as aluminum was made, essentially it was made by the reduction of titanium tetrachloride very elemental magnesium or, in some cases, sodium. Does it have to be that way? What if we did the same thing as we did with aluminum? Would that transform titanium? If we transform titanium, would that cost, would that change the way we join titanium with the way we use it in other places, and so on? Would it allow us to make new alloys? That's the way I see it working.
Q: As you know, Leo, we've had a wonderful long term relationship in metal casting with the Department of Energy's program and I guess my question is, we are small and medium sized enterprises, as you know, and we've had a successful coalition of associations that work with DOE to set strategic plans and identify these key technologies and then enable small, medium, convene that small, medium sized enterprise. And so my first question is, do you see a role for associations like ours, coalitions like ours, to establish an MDF, become an MDF. How would you visualize associations being involved? I guess the second question is, historically, because it's a DOE program of key metric, in terms of funding and everything else, was, improved energy efficiency, or improved energy productivity...I sense a shift that you're now looking at competitiveness in equally, more than, less than, and so I guess my question is, how would you articulate the role of competitiveness compared to energy efficiency in your vision for the MDF centers?
A: Okay, so the answer to the first question...yes, associations can certainly participate and are welcome to bid. In fact, you know, if there's a successful model out there already, we want to build on it. We don't want to break things that are working. We just want to strengthen the things that are working. Those of you that have this clusters already and have worked the pre-competitive, to reduce things like toxic materials, and I know a lot of this has been done....all of that is welcome and we need to build on those successes. I mean, jointly, when you think about it where we are today versus where were 40 years ago, we're just so much better in industry. And a lot of it has been because there's been a lot of pre-competitive and association work together and I think I would very much like to build on those. So, yes to that one.
With respect to the question of energy efficiency, we are the Department of Energy and we do believe that energy conservation and renewable energy is at the core of United States national security for the foreseeable future. A lot of our problems derive from our reliance on foreign oil and energy sources and a lot of our economy depends on the fact that we're dependent on, $4 a gallon or whatever it is these days, you know, on people that are not, necessarily, always friendly to us but it's really the global market place. It's China and India and the rest of the world increase their consumption, you know. There's so much petroleum in the world. So, energy efficiency and renewable energy is a key metric for us and certainly for the MDF's, ecosystems, institutes that we will spearhead. I think that will be a key metric, still. For the one's at the Department of Commerce and the Department of Defense are going to spearhead, I think the emphasis on energy may not be so much.
As Mike tried to indicate, within the, and I don't know if this came across, within the broader 15 or whatever number of institutes with MDF's or without MDF's, that will be created....some will be led by DOE, some will be led by DOD and some will be led by DOC and some, of course, by NSF. But the idea is that we are all going to participate in them, the whole USG. So, depending on which camp you end up, the role of energy may be different. But for us, it will always be there.
Q: I have two questions and one is that these MDF is highly focused in that how beneficial the help the same year and other manufacturing related institutions. But at the same time, someone with the manufacturing research requires that pure research takes the time, so do you balance these kind of aspects for this MDF facility? And the second question is that, some of the manufacturing technologies are well advanced than other countries. Do we allow this participation with the other countries?
A: Okay, so I think I said it and I will say it again. We believe, and certainly we within the Department of Energy, and I know the National Science Foundation and DOD and Commerce are the same, but I can categorically tell you that we believe that there is a lot of science in manufacturing. So, we welcome and encourage and we want to bring people that have heretofore been only doing, writing papers for Nature and Science and so forth, to think about bringing some of that science to the manufacturing sector. So we do want that participation. So, you know, we see them as a key element to the institute and to the MDF. So, that's the case.
Now, it is true that in a number of industries, that technology has progressed overseas further than the United States. And for my part, at least, under the right circumstances, provided that the outcome of the research is manufactured in the United States, I don't care where the original idea comes from. Okay? Because I'm not so arrogant to think that we are the only people with great ideas. Let's respect other people who have different points of view, who have great ideas, too. But if we can take those great ideas and implement them, actually manufacture the products in the United States, that's very good. I think I'm a product of this. I'm a zero generation American, my daughter is a first generation American, but I'm a zero generation American. Look, I came over and I brought my ideas here. Okay? And I would like to see more of that happen. Why not? I mean it's really important for people with great ideas, let them come here and create in the United States here. So, if there needs to be the appropriate partnerships, but we are very sensitive to the trend of develop it here, I mean innovate here and manufacture it overseas. That would not be something that we would look for.
Q: One of Mike Molnar's slides, the one that talked about basic, applied and commercial levels of funding, he talked about the institutes for manufacturing innovation being technology readiness levels 4 through 7. But yet, as he went through it, he said he doesn't expect RD&D to be conducted there. So, I'm a little, that seems inconsistent.
A: I don't think he meant to say that, although I will leave it up to him to respond.
Q: (continued) The words were beyond RD&D then.
A: Okay, I think a theme that both Mike and I feel quite strongly about, that we want to convey to this group and to everybody is that, as a nation, we have made and we continue to make tremendous investments in basic R&D. You know, National Science Foundation, NIH, you know, billions of dollars every year, all very important and we need to continue to doing it and we need to do more. Let me be on record on that. What we're trying to do in this particular segment of USG, right, in all activities, and it's only a small segment...we are trying to fill that little gap that got, The Valley of Death, it's sometimes called, where great ideas do not get translated into products. So, I think what Mike is trying to say and what I would like to say is that the emphasis of our investments here are going to be in that regime. That is not to say that we are not going to do a little bit more basic research, if we need it. If you, in the process of manufacturing something, you absolutely have to find out a new florescence technique for in situ monitoring, and that's some basic science, you should do it, because it's in the mission of your MDF.
Q: (continued) So technology development and product development are not precluded?
A: They're not precluded, not precluded.
DR. LEO CHRISTODOULOU: I don't know how we're doing for time. Last question now and then we'll take a break and reconvene at 11 o'clock.
I'll take your question.
Q: Along the same lines, so one of the models as you know that kept coming up in a number of the reports that you mentioned, was the Fraunhofer Institute of Germany. And what enabled that to become so successful, is to actually grow to be a two billion dollar year operation and is that Germany put this in the Fraunhofer at the same level of intellect and PhD's and scientists that we put into basic research in this country. They actually put those people to work in this Valley of Death that you mention and actually scaling the research into real technologies and processes. But what I'm not clear about, and maybe it's just sort of the diagram...what I see there, you have the Manufacturing Demonstration Facilities in the middle, with shared resources, companies can come and try things. You still have academia, which is always going to have their priorities, which is research and education and so forth, and industry that has their priority. But where is that technology development that came up, where do you see that happening? Assuming you agree that that scenario needs to be....
A: Okay, at the risk of foreshadowing everything Kelly is going to say later, the idea is technology development will happen in the Manufacturing Demonstration Facilities. We actually, even in the one we have today, we have PhD's. The one at Oak Ridge that we've established (inaudible) manufacturing. We have very highly educated people in there. So, we want intellectual capital as well as physical capital within these Manufacturing Demonstration Facilities. So, yes, the answer is we want the best and brightest people from across the community working on this problem, programs and problems. So, absolutely. The reason I have academia and industry right there is, in this way, to say that, you know, they don't, they have to be, the fact is you can have a professor or an industry engineer who spends some time, you know, as part of their job, some of their time in the MDF, that's great. It's just that I didn't want to put everybody in the MDF, necessarily. I see, for example, graduate students doing some of their research at MDF's. I see industry trying out new prototype things in facilities that they don't have at the prototype level in their facility but they would try it out there and go back and do it. So, I see a sort of a, I guess put out (inaudible) I was just trying to put it and make it simple.
Thank you all for your questions. We will continue this theme after the break and we will take more questions then. We'll take a break.
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