What MEL Does
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory (MEL) promotes innovation and the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturing through measurement science, measurement services, and critical technical contributions to standards.
MEL serves as an agent for change in the fast-paced world of manufacturing. When only a few-month lag in product development can jeopardize the financial health and stability of even the most established companies, manufacturers must have the resources to meet the demands of increased global competition and continue to make quality products meeting the needs of their customers. As the future of manufacturing in the U.S. becomes increasingly focused on innovative, high value add, knowledge-intensive products and high technology materials and processes, MEL actively anticipates manufacturers’ changing requirements and pushes beyond the state of the art to solve tomorrow’s measurement and standards problems today.
Developed collaboratively with our external partners in industry, academia, and other government agencies, MEL measurement and standards solutions allow our customers to overcome barriers to product and process innovation, to share manufacturing information seamlessly and accurately, and to take full advantage of the latest technologies essential to their competitiveness and future success.
Unique assets of special value to industry include MEL uses unique resources such as the world’s largest dead weight stack, the X-ray Optics Calibration Interferometer (XCALIBER) facility, a large anechoic chamber for acoustical testing, and the U.S. primary kilogram and others to provide the best in the world calibration services, accurate machining processes characterizations, and technical access to the rich opportunities of information technology. Our world-leading Advanced Measurement Laboratory, which opened in 2003, provides state-of-the-art facilities in air quality, temperature, vibration, and humidity control. The industrial measurements of length, force, mass, acoustics, and vibration and the use of product data exchange are ultimately traced back to MEL.
MEL makes visible, and pervasive, contributions to the vitality of the U.S. manufacturing sector, which accounts for approximately 12 percent (about $1.6 trillion) of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product—and employs 14.3 million workers. MEL customers span the full range from established to emerging-technology industries — including automotive, aerospace, construction and agricultural equipment, medical devices, microelectronics, optics, telecommunications, and nanotechnology. MEL makes a difference to these firms, for example:
- One U.S. aerospace manufacturer credits MEL large-scale metrology innovations and standards leadership with enabling the replacement of full-scale physical models with digital models, resulting in cost savings of more than $100M. MEL calibration advancements also enable the in-process use of advanced digital 3D measurement systems in aircraft production, leading to faster, higher-precision assembly and product weight and operational cost savings.
- During a defense prime contractor’s rebid of machined parts that involved about 2,300 part numbers and 50 potential suppliers, the use of product information standards championed by MEL provided a 95 percent reduction in procurement costs and a 52 percent reduction in labor required to provide information to suppliers by the prime contractor, with similar savings predicted for suppliers.
MEL has a budget of approximately $43 million and a staff of 350 scientists and engineers, support personnel, craftsmen, technicians, and visiting scientists. Our five divisions address the complexity and demands of the manufacturing community:
- Precision Engineering Division provides the foundation for dimensional measurements over 12 orders of magnitude (hundreds of meter to nanometers) via research, development, measurement services, and information dissemination (including standards);
- Manufacturing Metrology Division fulfills the measurements and standards needs of the U.S. in mechanical metrology and advanced manufacturing technology via research and development, development of methods and data, provision of measurement services, and leadership for development of standards;
- Intelligent Systems Division performs research and development focusing on the measurement and standards and associated with the development and application of intelligent control, open-architecture standards, and intelligent systems manufacturing;
- Manufacturing Systems Integration Division promotes U.S. economic growth by working with industry to develop and apply measurements and standards that advance information-based manufacturing technology; and
- Fabrication Technology Division provides world-class instrument and specialized fabrication support for NIST researchers and serves as a testbed for many NIST/MEL programs.
