Introduction to IMS
What is IMS? |
Benefits for Industry |
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IMS is an industry-led, international research and development (R&D) program established to develop the next generation of manufacturing and processing technologies.
Companies and research institutions from Australia, Canada, the European Union and Norway, Japan, Korea, Switzerland, and the United States of America participate in this program. Other regions are encouraged to join.
The next generation of advanced manufacturing and processing technologies will be expensive to produce, and no one entity has all the expertise needed. Cooperative R&D to share costs, risks, and expertise is the order of the day.
Properly managed international cooperation in advanced manufacturing R&D, through IMS, can help improve manufacturing operations, enhance international competitiveness, and lead to technology breakthroughs via market-driven R&D.
IMS provides a support structure for conducting R&D projects within specific arrangements for the protection of intellectual property rights. Results of IMS projects are shared through a process of controlled information diffusion that protects and equitably allocates any intellectual property, both background and foreground.
With nearly 300 companies and 200 research institutions currently active in IMS research consortia, IMS is a proven program.
Let IMS work for you!
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It’s easy to become
involved in an IMS Manufacturing Technology initiative. You may
participate by joining an existing or developing MTP consortium, or
start your own initiative. To join an initiative, simple browse
the
MTP proposals
and contact the originator, or contact your local
IMS Regional Secretariat.
Your IMS Regional Secretariat is ready, willing, and able to
assist you with either of these options.
Please refer to the IMS Web site and your Regional Secretariat for more details about elements in this guide.
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Benefits for Industry |
IMS facilitates international partnerships and provides a platform to combine complementary skills. IMS provides access to technology that might not be available within a region and offers the possibility to address leading-edge production challenges.
Through cooperation in IMS, costs, burdens and risks related to R&D can be reduced and shared. By combining end-users of manufacturing technologies with advanced technology producers and research institutions, IMS research is industry-driven and focused on real-world issues ensuring the market relevance of technology improvements.
IMS offers technology trials on a large-scale basis, involving a global user community and ensuring general applicability of the technology developed. Inter-regional cooperation in IMS can contribute to global diffusion of manufacturing technologies, including the development of new international manufacturing standards.
For smaller businesses, IMS offers the opportunity to "go global" safely and effectively. The IMS intellectual property rights (IPR) provisions enable small businesses to cooperate effectively and on an equal footing with large firms. New market opportunities will arise through improved market intelligence. International cooperation also provides better visibility, and contacts that can lead to new opportunities for further collaboration and other, indirect benefits.
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Benefits for Research Institutions and Academia |
IMS offers research institutions and academia the opportunity to work alongside the world's best researchers from industry to develop jointly the next generation of technology.
The market-driven character of IMS R&D means that academics and researchers are part of an effort to transfer valuable technologies through education and training, to future generations. Participation in IMS also ensures that state-of-the-art information is broadly available for curriculum development.
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Benefits for Governments |
IMS can facilitate a better return of publicly funded R&D.
IMS can be an excellent vehicle for solving problems common to manufacturing industries in all Regions including environment, sustainable development, safety and quality of industrial life.
IMS contributes to the improvement of social welfare and to the healthy growth of the economies of participants through the improvement and diffusion of manufacturing technology throughout the region
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IMS objectives |
- to enable greater sophistication in manufacturing operations;
- to improve the global environment;
- to improve the efficiency with which renewable and non-renewable resources are used;
- to create new products and conditions which significantly improve the quality of life for users;
- to improve the quality of the manufacturing environment;
- to develop a recognized and respected discipline of manufacturing which will encourage the transfer of knowledge to future generations;
- to respond effectively to the globalization of manufacturing;
- to enlarge and open markets around the world; and,
- the advancement of manufacturing professionalism worldwide by providing global
recognition and establishing an educational discipline for manufacturing.
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Guiding Philosophies |
Within the context of the overall IMS Objectives listed above, the IMS Program has identified four guiding philosophies to focus IMS efforts in the next few years. These guiding philosophies are fully in accord with IMS Program objectives and technical themes. They will be reviewed periodically by the ISC as appropriate. The four IMS guiding philosophies are:
- Enable industry to contribute to global wealth creation by addressing the value of information and knowledge and by exploiting emerging and converging technologies.
- Address synchronicity between technology and human needs taking into account, the changing nature of the workforce and workplace, and contributing to the development and certification of skills.
- Be agents for global equity and raised living standards worldwide through appropriate sharing of knowledge and diffusion of manufacturing knowledge.
- Enhance sustainability and resource efficiency in worldwide delivery of products and associates through process improvements, adding greater intangible value, logistical efficiency/business re- organization.
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Regional Secretariats typically can help:
- inform you about IMS, its objectives and operations;
- inform you about any ongoing projects;
- assist in identification of sources of R&D funding;
- look for potential partners, both in your region and internationally; and
- register you on a list of potential IMS participants.
You can request support from your Regional Secretariat for contacting potential partners on this list, particularly in regions other than your own. You can also request your Regional Secretariat to search for potential partners through contacting other Regional Secretariats to access firms not currently listed in the interested entities group.
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Ten IMS Priority R&D Areas |
Within the context of the IMS technical themes, several areas for special emphasis have been identified as priority areas within the IMS Program. These priorities, which cut across the IMS technical themes listed above, are:
- Sustainable Design, Products and Manufacturing Processes
- Sustainable Workplace
- Knowledge-Based Value Creation In e-Manufacturing
- The Smart Organization
- Dynamic Collaborative Value-Creating Networks
- Extended Enterprise, Supply Chain Management
- Mobile and Ubiquitous e-Business and e-Work
- Modeling And Simulation, Virtual Engineering, Digital Factories
- Manufacturing On Demand (e-Manufacturing)
- Development and Industrial Applications of Nano-Technologies and Bio- technologies
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Principles of IMS |
Industry-Led and Market-Driven Research and Development |
IMS project participants choose freely the subject of their cooperation within the five areas above and choose the partners with whom to cooperate. This bottom-up principle ensures that IMS projects are industrially relevant, timely and motivated by sound business interests. Prospective IMS partners are encouraged to join project consortia for approved on-going projects, to join those developing new IMS projects, and/or to propose the formation of a new IMS project team in a new subject area.
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International Cooperation and Effort |
Each IMS project must include R&D elements being performed by project partners in at least three of the regions participating in the IMS Program.
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Equitable and Balanced Benefits to All Participants |
The guiding principle is that benefits from and contributions to the cooperation in IMS must be equitable and balanced, both among the participating regions and within each IMS project.
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Added Value |
IMS projects must add economic and socio-economic value improving quality of life.
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(see ISC IRS Organization chart -
081310) |
The International IMS Steering Committee (ISC) |
The IMS initiative is overseen by an industry-led steering committee. Its members are drawn from eminent representatives from both industry and academia in each region. Government observers and the knowledgeable personalities in manufacturing, also participate.
The main responsibility of the ISC is to provide overall guidance, to set strategic priorities for the IMS Program and to oversee program implementation.
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The Inter-Regional Secretariat (IRS) |
The Inter-Regional Secretariat (IRS) has the responsibility to support the ISC in the day-to-day operations of the IMS Program. The IRS provides administrative support for IMS.
The IRS is responsible for coordinating proposal review, liaising with endorsed projects and disseminating project information. The IRS is also responsible for international marketing.
The IRS facilitates cooperation among Regional Secretariats, maintains the IMS Web page, IMS e-Mall and acts as a repository of information on IMS. It has a special role in interfacing with prospective new participants.
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Regional Secretariats |
For the implementation of IMS at the regional level, all participants have set up Regional Secretariats. Their responsibility is the day-to-day operations of IMS in the regions, including regional marketing and promotion of IMS, prospective partner searches in the regions, and logistics support for the development of IMS projects.
Regional Secretariats are typically the point of entry for entities interested in participating in the IMS Program. Interested entities are encouraged to contact their Regional Secretariat early on in the process of deciding whether to participate in any IMS project.
Regional Secretariats provide various support services to industry and research partners in IMS projects at all stages including; partner searches in the development phase, reviews and approvals of abstracts, proposals, and consortium agreements, and information on government funding support in the region for IMS R&D expenditures.
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The intellectual property rights, including patents and other rights, of participants in IMS projects are subject to the following provisions.
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Ownership: |
Access to prior, existing IPRs must be cleared through negotiations with the existing owners, whether such owners are participating in a research project or are third parties (background technology).
Newly created IPRs arising from IMS research are to be shared freely among the research partners (foreground technology), no matter which partner generates such rights.
Research partners may freely disclose the foreground rights they generate themselves, individually or jointly, to others.
Participants may disclose or transfer access to another party's foreground technology, generated separately by other partners in a project only with the permission of such other party or partners, or as part of necessary confidential production arrangements.
In all cases, access to background technology must be cleared by negotiations with the participant/party owning such rights.
Research partners may transfer the privilege of using the foreground rights they generate to assignees who assume their obligations under the research agreement.
Owners of background technology are expected to grant licenses on reasonable terms allowing access to such technology to permit commercial exploitation by the partners of the results of joint research.
Any participant generating IPRs as part of a research project must notify the other participants of the details of such rights.
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Publication: |
Non-confidential information arising from research projects is to be made available to all participants in a research consortium during the research period, and to the public at the conclusion of the project.
Proposed publications involving confidential information owned by other participants are to be discussed and negotiated between the parties before being released to the public.
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Licenses: |
While all participants (and their affiliates) may normally use without charge the foreground rights arising from a research project, in certain cases royalty arrangements may be negotiated to remunerate non-profit participants in projects (e.g. universities) who have helped generate or provide specific foreground technology.
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Exact Obligations: |
The precise terms of arrangements to be accepted by participants in IMS projects are defined in the Appendix III.2 to the IMS Terms of Reference. All participants will be expected to obtain legal advice in order to ensure that the benefits and obligations they are assuming are fully understood.
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Mark Carlisle
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Phone: (+1) 301 975 3982
Fax: (+1) 301 975 4694
Email: carlisle@nist.gov
Date created:
August 2, 2005
Last updated:
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