AMTEX Partnership highlights second year's successes

March 24, 1995

Researchers from several LBL divisions attended the Operating Committee Meeting of the AMTEX Partnership in Washington, D.C. on March 2. They met with leaders in the American textile industry, as well as collaborators from seven other DOE national laboratories, to discuss current projects and possible upcoming initiatives.

A special exhibition highlighted the work underway in many collaborative research and development endeavors across the nation. The event signaled the beginning of the AMTEX Partnership's third year since the signing of the original CRADA in March 1993, and allowed members of Congress, and many government and industry watchers to witness progress made since then.

The largest AMTEX initiative thus far is the Demand-Activated Manufacturing Architecture (DAMA) project. A key part of the DAMA project is the Enterprise Modeling and Simulation task, under the direction of ICS's Jane Macfarlane. Computer scientists here are working with the textile industry to determine strategic business structure and practice changes within the industrial supply chain that will improve performance in the global market.

The AMTEX Partnership was established to help the American textile industry integrate American technological resources in order to compete more successfully with much cheaper foreign labor. Researchers in the Engineering, Energy & Environment, and Biotechnology areas are also participating in AMTEX projects.

LBL attendees at the meeting in addition to Macfarlane were Craig Eades of ICSD; Ed Burgess, Craig Fong, Don Foster, and Michael Green of Engineering; and Dick Fish, Stevan Jovanovich and Rolf Mehlhorn of E&E.