DETROIT – – MxD, the national digital manufacturing and cybersecurity institute, recently announced that it has received a $3.88 million award from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), part of the U.S. Department of Commerce. The award will establish a rapid response medical goods supply chain marketplace and advance data analysis to track future demand signals. Wayne State University will lead the project and will build a collaborative research team with Oregon State University and Iowa State University. 

The project is one of 13 high-impact projects recently awarded by NIST, which awarded nearly $54 million in grants for research, development and testbeds for pandemic response. The funding, which was provided by the American Rescue Act, will support projects at eight manufacturing innovation institutes in collaboration with leading research universities, nonprofits, and small and large manufacturers.

Rx Product Marketplace Orchestrator 

The team, led by Kyoung-Yun Kim, Ph.D., professor of industrial and systems engineering and the director of the Computational Intelligence and Design Informatics Laboratory and the Smart Manufacturing Demonstration Center in Wayne State’s College of Engineering, will develop the Rx Product Marketplace Orchestrator – an online marketplace for consumers and manufacturers of emergency health and medical goods that will ensure rapid response across the supply chain to meet demand for particular items (e.g., respirators, ventilators and face masks). 

The marketplace will include elements to semi-automatically harvest product design and manufacturing information and to perform online matchmaking, offering the ability to fulfill consumer demands from willing and able producers. Orchestration algorithms will maintain constant, manageable demand and ensure capacity utilization and load balancing between participating producers, as well as knowledge sharing for making the demanded goods. 

The system will have the capacity to handle thousands of concurrent pairings between producers and consumers, and will have the ability to track and fulfill orders and balance the demand quickly and easily.

“We saw manufacturers step up to coordinate a response to sudden surges in demand for medical goods at various points during the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Kim. “Organizing and automating much of this activity in an online marketplace will streamline these activities and reduce the time and friction involved in getting these products to where they are urgently needed.” 

“This project also creates a unique partnership of industry experts and university researchers to solve the challenge of connecting new product designers with manufacturers that can bring those ideas to reality in an efficient and cost-effective manner,” said Karl Haapala, Ph.D., associate professor and Tom & Carmen West Faculty Scholar in Oregon State University’s School of Mechanical, Industrial, and Manufacturing Engineering.

Haapala will lead researchers at Oregon State to develop foundational process models to quantify and improve manufacturing system performance, along with the Center for Applied Systems and Software, which will develop and manage the Rx Product Marketplace platform.

This project brings together complementary expertise from academic partners of deep collaborations.

“I am simply delighted to continue working with Drs. Kim, Haapala and Leslie Monplaisir on this impactful project,” said Gül E. Kremer, Ph.D., Wilkinson Professor in Iowa State University’s Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering.

Kremer will bring her expertise in text analytics to this project.

MxD received a second award from NIST to establish a Local Health Alert System that will conduct contact tracing and data analysis, translating real-time public health indicators into future demand signals to develop predictive capabilities for supply chain needs. The project will be led by SIMBA Chain, a software company.

“Long before the pandemic, we were in the business of solving hard problems by forging new coalitions of researchers, manufacturers and technologists,” said Federico Sciammarella, Ph.D., MxD president and chief technology officer. “These projects will enable MxD and its partners to put the tools in place for more agile supply chains when the next major public health challenge arises.” 

About Wayne State University

Wayne State University is one of the nation’s pre-eminent public research universities in an urban setting. Through its multidisciplinary approach to research and education, and its ongoing collaboration with government, industry and other institutions, the university seeks to enhance economic growth and improve the quality of life in the city of Detroit, state of Michigan and throughout the world. For more information about research at Wayne State University, visit research.wayne.edu.

About Oregon State University

As one of only three land, sea, space and sun grant universities in the nation, Oregon State serves Oregon and the world by working on today’s most pressing issues. Our more than 34,000 students come from across the globe, and our programs operate in every Oregon county. Oregon State receives more research funding than all of the state’s comprehensive public universities combined. At our campuses in Corvallis and Bend, marine research center in Newport and award-winning Ecampus, we excel at shaping today’s students into tomorrow’s leaders. For more information about Oregon State University, visit oregonstate.edu.

About Iowa State University

Iowa State University of Science and Technology is a renowned research and land-grant university. Iowa State is #16 in the nation for research expenditures among universities without medical schools and ranks among the top 100 universities worldwide awarded U.S. patents. A recognized national leader in innovation and entrepreneurship education, Iowa State’s world-class academic programs and experiential opportunities are preparing its nearly 31,000 students to make Iowa and the world a better place. For more information about Iowa State University, visit iastate.edu.

About MxD 

MxD (Manufacturing x Digital) is where innovative manufacturers go to forge their futures. In partnership with the Department of Defense, MxD equips U.S. factories with the digital tools, cybersecurity, and workforce expertise needed to begin building every part better than the last. As a result, our more than 300 partners increase their productivity, win more business, and strengthen U.S. manufacturing. MxD is also the National Center for Cybersecurity in Manufacturing as designated by DoD. For more about MxD, visit mxdusa.org.