On 6 March, the Washington DC weather forecasters were calling for a large snowstorm, duly named the “snowquester”, due to the unfortunate timing coming immediately after sequestration took hold on federal budgets. Unfortunately for my colleague from Atlanta and me, our long-awaited workshop on manufacturing innovation was set to take place the same day. As Wednesday morning dawned, the forecasts became increasingly dire, and the feds closed up shop. Strike one. Two workshop participants called to say their previously rescheduled flights had also been cancelled, in addition to the half dozen from the previous day. Strike two. Wait – the Embassy is always open! Well, we decided to proceed as planned and see who showed up. Strike three was averted.
When we arrived at the Embassy, one of our federal participants from the National Institutes of Standards and Technology had already arrived – there was literally no traffic on the as yet snow-free roadways. A few minutes later our entire UK contingent arrived en masse as they had flown in the previous day and avoided all of the weather issues. All in all – we had 23 of 33 confirmed participants show up for our full day workshop and remain for the reception afterwards. Things were certainly looking up.
With a few adjustments to compensate for some of the speakers who could not make it, the workshop proceeded as planned. We had excellent participation from US federal government (despite the shutdown), UK government , as well as academic institutions, non-profits, and the private sector from both sides of the pond. On a day when most people could have thrown in the towel and snuggled up with a good book and a blanket at home or in their hotel room, most chose to come to a workshop where the aim was to share best practices surrounding the models that the UK and US are using to foster the public-private partnerships which are giving rise to manufacturing innovation centers. Why was this so important that people would show up even on a snow day?
Manufacturing contributes over £6.7 trillion to the global economy, and UK manufacturing directly employs 2.5 million people. The UK government has committed £350 million to the centres of the High Value Manufacturing (HVM) Catapult, which was created in 2011 by the UK government to provide a stimulus for British manufacturing through a consortium of seven manufacturing technology centres. A similar commitment from the US government through the nascent National Network of Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI) has been suggested through the Presidents Advanced Manufacturing Partnership.
Increasing public-private partnerships in the engineering, aerospace, and automotive sectors will increase the competitiveness and add value to both the UK and US economies. At the end of the day ideas were shared, models compared, and an announcement made about a researcher exchange in advanced manufacturing –of which many of the participating UK and US universities and centres are eligible. The take home message was that collaboration, not competition, would push both countries to succeed in the manufacturing innovation space.
And the “snowquester”? Not surprisingly, it never manifested itself – the majority of the day it rained rather than snowed. Some forecasters said it was all of the hot air (obviously not from our conference) rising above Washington which kept the temperatures from dropping enough for a proper snowfall.