9423175 Howes The Center for Grinding Research and Development (CGRD), an NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Center, seeks funding to support its director on a tour of precision manufacturing research centers and companies in Asia. The CGRD and its industrial sponsors recognize that grinding technology development is taking place world wide and that standards of precision in grinding are set on a global rather than a national scale. The tour of precision manufacturing laboratories and companies proposed for the CGRD director will achieve several goals. First, and most significantly, it will allow him to better determine the research paths that would be strategically advantageous for the CGRD and its industrial sponsors to pursue. Additionally, the tour is expected to open opportunities for research collaboration between Asian centers and the CGRD and its industrial sponsors. Through this tour, the director will be able to access a fund of international expertise in grinding and precision manufacturing hitherto unavailable in the U.S. Finally, the director will explore the possibility of future collaborative projects between the CGRD and these sites. The report that results from this tour will be mf strategic importance to the NSF as well as the Grinding Center. The CGRD director has already visited precision manufacturing research facilities in Germany and Japan, and this tour will allow him to produce an analysis that takes into account the major areas of precision manufacturing technology throughout the world. Such a document could assist the NSF in making policy decision relevant to its manufacturing initiatives.
