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Quality

First Three Education Recipients Highlight 2001 Baldrige Award

A Wisconsin university, a five-school New York public school district and a tiny public school district spread across 22,000 miles of Alaska were named on Dec. 4, 2001, as the first recipients of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in education. The three scholastic organizations join a Texas check manufacturer and a Tennessee quick-service restaurant chain as the 2001 winners of the nation’s premier award for performance excellence and quality achievement.

This year’s Baldrige Award recipients (and their categories) are:

No awards were given in the service and health care categories.

In addition to including the first-ever winners in the education category, this year’s awards include the first winner in the quick service restaurant industry, Pal’s Sudden Service. Chugach School District, with just 30 faculty and staff, is not only one of the first education winners, it also is the smallest organization to win a Baldrige Award. Three of the 2001 winners also have won state quality awards: Clarke American Checks, 2001 Texas Award for Performance Excellence; Pal’s Sudden Service, 2001 Tennessee Quality Excellence Award; and Pearl River School District, 1994 New York Governor’s Excelsior Award.

The 2001 recipients are expected to receive their Baldrige Awards at a Presidential ceremony in Washington, D.C., early next year.

Go to the NIST web site at www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/g01-110.htm for details on the 2001 Baldrige Award and the recipient organizations. Further information on the Baldrige National Quality Program is available at www.quality.nist.gov or by calling (301) 975-2036.

Media Contact:
Jan Kosko, (301) 975-2767

 

Budget

President Approves FY 2002 Funds for NIST

On Nov. 28, 2001, President Bush signed into law the fiscal year 2002 budget appropriation of $674.5 million for NIST that gives all of the agency’s four major programs sufficient funding to continue promoting U.S. economic growth.

Included in the FY 2002 budget are three separate appropriations: $321.1 million for Scientific and Technical Research and Services (including $315.9 million for the NIST Laboratories and $5.2 million for the Baldrige National Quality Program); $291 million for Industrial Technology Services (including $184.5 million for the Advanced Technology Program, or ATP, and $106.5 million for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, or MEP); and $62.4 million for Construction of Research Facilities (including $20.9 million to address the highest priority safety, capacity, maintenance and major repair projects required to operate NIST’s research facilities in Gaithersburg, Md., and Boulder, Colo.; and $41.5 million for unrequested construction and research projects).

Media Contact:
Michael E. Newman, (301) 975-3025

 

Administration

Arden Bement Becomes the 12th NIST Director

The US Senate confirmed Arden L. Bement Jr. as NIST’s 12th director on Nov. 30, 2001. He was sworn in one week later.

Bement, 69, was nominated by President Bush on Oct. 23, 2001, and succeeds Raymond Kammer, who retired in December 2000. NIST Deputy Director Karen Brown has served as acting director in the interim.

Bement was most recently the David A. Ross Distinguished Professor of Nuclear Engineering and head of the School of Nuclear Engineering at Purdue University. He comes to his position as NIST director well versed in the workings of the agency, having previously served as head of the Visiting Committee on Advanced Technology, the agency’s primary private-sector policy adviser; as head of the advisory committee for NIST’s Advanced Technology Program; and on the Board of Overseers for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

Bement joined the Purdue faculty in 1992 after a 39-year career in industry, government and academia. His previous federal positions were as deputy under secretary of defense for research and engineering (1979-1980); and director, Office of Materials Science, Department of Defense’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (1976-1979).

Along with his NIST advisory roles, Bement served as a member of the US National Science Board, the advisory board for the National Science Foundation, from 1989 to 1995. He also chaired the Commission for Engineering and Technical Studies and the Materials Advisory Board of the National Research Council; was a member of the Space Station Utilization Advisory Subcommittee and the Commercialization and Technology Advisory Committee for NASA; and consulted for the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory and Idaho Nuclear Energy and Environmental Laboratory.

Media Contact:
Michael E. Newman, (301) 975-3025

 

 

Technology Innovation

The Future of Bridge Design? ‘Plastics’ Says ATP Partner

Plastic bridges? Believe it. Or more properly “fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composite” bridges. The latest one—spanning Dicky Creek in Sugar Grove, Va.—was just dedicated last month. One of the longest FRP bridges to date, the Sugar Grove structure is a 12-meter (38-foot), two-lane, clear-span bridge supported by eight 92-centimeter (36-inch) deep composite beams supplied by Strongwell Corp. of Bristol, Va. The bridge, say designers, meets US standards for a bridge capable of carrying full tractor-trailer traffic.

A major issue for widespread use of polymer composites is the ability to manufacture the large composite beams at a cost competitive with steel. Strongwell’s unique beams, strengthened with a combination of glass and carbon fibers, were developed under a NIST Advanced Technology Program (ATP) project to enhance the mechanical properties of the material, optimize beam shape, and establish design standards and load capacities.

Bridge engineers have high hopes for the future of polymer composite bridges. Composite beams can be much lighter and stronger than the steel beams they replace, and easier and faster to install (because of their light weight.) Even better, they are expected to be considerably more durable and maintenance-free than steel. Durability is a major benefit—Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) studies indicate that nearly 30 percent of US bridges are obsolete or structurally deficient, and that bridge maintenance/repair is a major expense for many state and local transportation departments.

The Dicky Creek bridge was constructed as a joint project by Strongwell, the FHWA Innovative Bridge Research and Construction Program, the Virginia Department of Transportation and Virginia Tech University. Researchers from Virginia Tech installed special equipment to monitor the bridge over the next year.

More information on the NIST ATP can found at www.atp.nist.gov; the Innovative Bridge Research and Construction Program at www.fhwa.dot.gov/bridge/ibrc.htm; and Strongwell Corp. at www.strongwell.com.

Media Contact:
Michael Baum, (301) 975-2763

 

 

Computer Security

AES Becomes Federal Standard for Encrypting Data

On Dec. 4, 2001, Commerce Secretary Don Evans approved Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 197 that makes the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) the official government encryption tool for protecting sensitive, unclassified information well into the 21st century. The new standard also is expected to be used widely in the private sector, benefiting millions of consumers and businesses.

The approval of FIPS 197 marks the culmination of a four-year effort by computer scientists at NIST to secure and implement a highly secure algorithm for the AES. This was done through an international competition, starting in September 1997, in which researchers from 12 different countries submitted encryption algorithms. Fifteen candidate formulas chosen by NIST in August 1998 were “attacked” for vulnerabilities and intensely evaluated by the worldwide cryptographic community to ensure that they met the AES criteria. After the field was narrowed down to five in April 1999, NIST asked for intensified attacks and scrutiny on the finalists. Evaluations of the encoding formulas examined factors such as security, speed and versatility.

The algorithm selected for the AES in October 2000 incorporates the Rijndael (pronounced “Rhine-doll”) encryption formula. It supports key sizes of 128, 192 and 256 bits. For a 128-bit key size, there are approximately 340 undecillion (340 followed by 36 zeros) possible keys.

The AES replaces the aging Data Encryption Standard (DES), which NIST adopted in 1977 as the federal encryption standard. DES and a variant called Triple DES have been used widely in the private sector as well.

Products implementing the AES are expected to be available shortly in the marketplace. NIST also is completing arrangements so that vendors can have their implementations of AES validated under the Cryptographic Module Validation Program, jointly led by NIST and the Government of Canada’s Communications Security Establishment. Validation helps ensure that the complex AES algorithm has been implemented correctly. Private-sector accredited laboratories conduct this testing, which then is validated by NIST and CSE. For more details see http://csrc.nist.gov/cryptval/.

Detailed information about the development of the AES, and the standard itself, is available at www.nist.gov/aes.

Media Contact:
Philip Bulman, (301) 975-5661

 

 

Manufacturing

Small Manufacturers: MEP Has Your Top 10 New Year’s Resolutions

It’s New Year’s resolution time, and the NIST Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) is encouraging small businesses to start the year off by making cost-saving and productivity-increasing resolutions. MEP’s top 10 New Year’s resolutions for 2002 include:

1. Re-examine your market approach to help you determine opportunities in new growth areas.
2. Compare a profile of your ideal customer to marketing databases to find new prospective customers.
3. Invest in sales training and technology.
4. Get fresh ideas on your business by getting an objective, outside view of your company.
5. Use lean business strategies to identify and eliminate waste in the business cycle.
6. Upgrade your network security.
7. Review your disaster and recovery plans.
8. Invest in employee training.
9. Take stock of what you measure and why.
10. Ask your employees about ways to improve the company.

For more information on the top 10 New Year’s resolutions, go to www.nist.gov. MEP is a nationwide network of 400 manufacturing extension centers and field offices providing a wide variety of expertise and services to small manufacturers (under 500 employees) in all 50 states and Puerto Rico. More information can be found at www.mep.nist.gov or manufacturers can reach the center serving their area by calling (800) MEP-4MFG (637-4634).

Media Contact:
Jan Kosko, (301) 975-2767