A Review of the Automated Manufacturing Research Facility at the National Bureau of Standards - Federal Government Involvement in Manufacturing Innovation

The Automated Manufacturing Research Facility (AMRF) at the National Bureau of Standards (NBS) was created to help solve the two major problems facing small job shops that wish to automate their production process:

• getting the equipment from different producer goods companies to communicate and work together
• establishing a better system for measuring the quality of products produced in an automated facility. [public, 4/86, p 8]

This paper is a review of the AMRF from an engineering and public policy standpoint. It discusses the world situation in robotics and automation and how the AMRF fulfills some of the potential roles of the federal government in the development of automation. It discusses the facility's history and purposes - the projects and developments that led to its conception, the motivations for its creation, its current status and projects, and the problems that it can address. It presents a summary of who is involved with the program and how that has shaped the program, as well as a review of the program's benefits and costs.