Planning Grant: Engineering Research Center for Design by Anyone and Build Anywhere (iMOS)

工程研究中心规划奖助金竞赛是作为ERC计划的试点征集活动进行的。计划拨款并不是整个ERC竞赛的一部分，而是为了在团队之间建立能力，以计划集中的、中心规模的工程研究。ERC的愿景是解决设计工具的挑战，让任何人都可以参与产品设计，并有能力在任何地方制造产品。该ERC将研究驱动产品制造的底层网络连接操作系统(IMOS：互联网支持的制造操作系统)的基础。该项目设想了中心规模的活动，使人类能够专注于他们与生俱来的创造力，同时拥有工具，负责将设计意图转化为能够制造出的功能齐全的产品模型所需的低级行动。一旦设计完成，这一愿景将使人们能够通过一次点击互动，让有能力和可用的服务提供商制造产品。这项提议需要一种融合的方法，需要在制造工程、计算机科学、工业工程、心理学、经济学和商业管理方面的专业知识。这一主题结合了21世纪利用数据和人类技术前沿工作的未来的当前趋同主题。它将为小公司、企业家甚至学生带来设计、制造和创新。此外，这种建立供应链的方法将更好地利用现有能力，将营销成本降至最低，并将开发供应链的繁琐和令人精疲力竭的工作降至最低。它还具有扩大美国制造业和就业的潜力。这将对美国农村产生影响，并使初创企业和少数族裔拥有的小型企业能够竞争。融合了工程学、制造业、计算机科学和行为科学的广泛不同的领域，将为工程教育提供一个新的范例。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The Planning Grants for Engineering Research Centers competition was run as a pilot solicitation within the ERC program. Planning grants are not required as part of the full ERC competition, but intended to build capacity among teams to plan for convergent, center-scale engineering research. The vision for this ERC is to solve the challenge of engineering the tools for anyone to engage in product design and have the ability to build the product anywhere. This ERC would study foundations for an underlying network connected operating system that drives the manufacturing of products (iMOS: Internet enabled Manufacturing Operating System). This project envisions center scale activities that would enable humans to focus on their innate creativity while having tools that take care of lower level actions necessary to translate design intent to fully featured product models capable of it being manufactured. Once designed, the vision would enable a human to have the product be manufactured by capable and available service providers through a single click interaction. This proposal requires a convergent approach requiring expertise in Manufacturing Engineering, Computer Science, Industrial Engineering, Psychology, Economics and Business Management. This theme combines current convergent themes in Harnessing Data in the 21st century and Future of Work at the Human-Technology Frontier. It will bring design, manufacturing and innovation to small companies, entrepreneurs and even students. Moreover, this approach to building supply chains will better utilize existing capacity, minimize marketing costs and the tedious and exhausting job of developing a supply chain. It also has to potential to expand US manufacturing and employment. This will have impact in rural America and enable start-up and small minority owned businesses to compete. The integration of widely disparate fields that integrate engineering,manufacturing, computer science, and behavioral sciences will enable a new paradigm for engineering education.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.