IMS Program

Intelligent Manufacturing Systems – IMS

The Intelligent Manufacturing Systems (IMS) organization is an international consortium that was created 20 years ago. It is a little different from other consortia in that the dues are already paid by the relevant governments – in the case of the U.S., the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) pays the dues on behalf of all American manufacturers. IMS can thus broker multilateral collaborations at no cost to the participants, other than your time, to help industry advance the state of manufacturing technology, which in turn helps you quickly adopt new technology. You can see additional information about IMS at www.ims.org.

The IMS program creates collaborative “project clusters” in technical areas where multi-lateral collaboration can accelerate already-ongoing work targeting manufacturing challenges.  When U.S. manufacturers can identify mutually complementary areas, IMS can help those organizations get together to share best practices, leverage technology and R&D results, and initiate collaborations. To this end, we are partnering with the Aerospace States Association (ASA) and the National Council for Advanced Manufacturing (NACFAM) to reach out to you to determine if there are opportunities to accelerate your adoption of new technologies in the area known as “Industry 4.0”.

If you are a small- or medium-sized aerospace manufacturer who performs machining or metal-forming, we want to hear from you exactly what is and is not of relevance to the growth and sustainment of your business, please see the brief questionnaire after reviewing the background on Industry 4.0 (linked below). Your feedback will inform the topic of a workshop that will be held in March for Southern California small- or medium-sized aerospace manufacturers.