MxD launched at an important time. Digital manufacturing was poorly understood and under-resourced, and cybersecurity in manufacturing was even less of a priority.

Ten years ago, MxD, the nation's Digital Manufacturing and Cybersecurity Institute, was launched. As one of 17 institutes known collectively as Manufacturing USA, MxD is a public-private partnership - supported by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), industry, academia, and non-profit partners - working to strengthen and secure American economic competitiveness.

A Look Back

MxD launched at an important time. Digital manufacturing was poorly understood and under-resourced, and cybersecurity in manufacturing was even less of a priority.

Over the last 10 years, MxD has served as a critical resource in tackling these challenges and creating opportunities to advance U.S. manufacturing through digital modernization, workforce training, and cybersecurity efforts in three important ways:

• Convening the manufacturing ecosystem to identify and solve key challenges that manufacturers face in modernizing and securing their operations.
• Advancing technology innovation and digital adoption in manufacturing to deliver resilient and revitalized supply chains.
• Empowering the workforce with the skills necessary to meet industry's needs.

MxD has over 300 members within its ecosystem across industry, academia, non-profit and government, with 650 members over its 10-year history. MxD leads a portfolio representing over $400 million of public private investment in R&D, cybersecurity and workforce development projects generating more than 540 IP assets focused on technology Innovation and adoption. Some highlights:

• MxD Cyber has provided thousands of U.S. manufacturers a unified and systematic approach to securing their operations by providing the tools, protocols, skills and information they need to undertake a secure digital transformation.

• MxD has conducted digital manufacturing and capability assessments of Rock Island Arsenal, Pine Bluff Arsenal, Crane Army Ammunition Activity, Picatinny Arsenal, Watervliet Arsenal and Marine Corps Maintenance Depot Albany to modernize and fortify key manufacturing operations at U.S Army and Marine Corps industrial facilities, a critical component of the national security supply chain.

• MxD has led 5G education and adoption across manufacturing resulting in the creation of advanced test beds on the MxD Factory Floor with resources to help manufacturers understand how to identify, evaluate, select and implement the technology.

• MxD Learn has supported more than 250,000 learners, including K-12 students, post-secondary students, current workers and educators, bolstering the manufacturing workforce through online learning courses, workshops, projects and visits.

• MxD Learn's Digital Manufacturing and Cybersecurity Hiring Guides, published in 2017 and 2020, explore the workforce implications of digital transformation, accelerated technology use, shared data and intelligence, smart products, smarter systems, security, and trust duties. Combined, the published Hiring Guides identify 412 job roles crucial to the future of manufacturing and recommend strategies to train workers to handle these roles.

• MxD projects have also addressed process improvement including:
o Automation for rapid prototyping where a 95% reduction in process planning was achieved.
o Real-time supply chain visibility through predictive analytics that generated a 50% improvement in supplier fulfillment date prediction.
o Integrated part variation management that resulted in a nearly 100% reduction in scrap.








Meeting the Moment

With more than 240,000 manufacturers and more than 12 million manufacturing jobs in the United States contributing over 10% to the GDP in 2023, digital technology adoption, cybersecurity readiness and workforce development remain critically important to national security and economic prosperity.

While great progress has been made, U.S. manufacturing still too often relies on 20th century infrastructure to meet 21st century needs. In fact, the industrial base is under stress and is shrinking in size.

Overall, the manufacturing sector is experiencing critical shortages of skilled workers with 2.1 million manufacturing jobs expected to go unfilled by 2030. It is also struggling to defend itself from a growing number of cyberattacks with manufacturing remaining the second-most-targeted industry by cybercriminals.

As MxD moves into the next decade, we continue to meet the moment. Building on what we have achieved, our overarching goals over the next five years will drive economic prosperity, protect national security and establish a path for future resiliency. MxD is focusing on a set of strategic priorities that will achieve national scale and impact thousands more manufacturers across the country.

We will digitalize and secure 10,000 manufacturers and upskill a million manufacturing workers to improve their digital manufacturing and cybersecurity skills. More specifically, we will:
• Scale our existing programs with a focus on bridging the technology innovation and adoption gap, with increased focus on the secure digital thread. With feedback from the MxD ecosystem, advancing digital transformation continues to rely on the data backbone. Capturing, monitoring, analyzing and sharing data helps organizations - large and small - solve critical industry-wide challenges both within the enterprise and across the supply chain. We will continue to commit resources to optimize the experience on the factory floor to ensure the latest technology is showcased and demonstrated for real-world application.
• Expand our partnership network to ensure widespread manufacturer adoption of digital solutions. For example, we will scale the MxD Sensor Kit program to thousands more manufacturers. The Sensor Kit was developed by MxD to provide a low-cost and accessible way for manufacturers to gain real-time data to inform and improve their operations. In addition, it provides a value-add solution offering to the partner channel, incentivizing digital adoption and complementing other solution offerings.
• Empower manufacturers with the resources needed to upskill their workforce and prepare for current and future needs. For instance, we will build off our hiring guides to develop a certification-based, workforce training program for future manufacturing jobs in digital manufacturing and cybersecurity for manufacturing.
• Convene our ecosystem to prioritize emerging technologies that will have a significant impact on manufacturing, such as AI and quantum while also prioritizing industry challenges that can be addressed with digital such as sustainability.
• And support the Department of Defense as it modernizes its organic industrial facilities. We will provide the trusted expertise on advanced manufacturing the DoD must leverage to prepare its industrial operations to be the backstop our nation needs in times of war and emergency.

MxD is here to help drive impact at scale. Over the next five years, MxD will digitalize and secure thousands more manufacturers, upskill millions more workers and modernize our defense organic industrial base. We will expand the shared know-how to develop scalable solutions that accelerate technology adoption and empower our workforce. In doing so, we will advance economic prosperity and national security by strengthening U.S. manufacturing competitiveness.

MxD: Convene. Advance. Empower.