Rick Delawder’s company specializes in coatings that prevent rust and applies them on parts for Ford, Caterpillar, Deere and Chrysler. But every 100 times or so, the angle of the machine that applies the coatings isn’t quite right and the coating pools where it shouldn’t.
“Now we have a defect,” said Delawder, president of SWD Inc. in Addison. “If it gets to an assembly plant, it actually has the ability to shut the assembly line down.”
More Top Picks Best Leather Boots For Women For Standing
And Delawder’s reject rate and costs go up.
Thanks to a high-tech manufacturing initiative to be announced Friday, Delawder will be able to turn to a University of Illinois-based supercomputer, which can work through every tilt, speed and permutation for running that coating machine until it finds a solution.
SWD is one of 10 small and midsize manufacturing firms offered the opportunity to work with the previously announced Illinois Manufacturing Lab during its initial launch.
The laboratory is an initiative of Gov. Pat Quinn propped up by $5 million in seed funding from the state Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. It will be housed within UI Labs in Chicago, a new research hub that combines private sector companies with university researchers. Its location hasn’t been announced.
“This is a resource that typically small companies, even if they could pay for computing time, wouldn’t know exactly how to use it,” said Caralynn Nowinski, UI Labs executive director and chief operating officer. “Many companies don’t even know how to use modeling and simulation in their design.”
She said the labs’ goal is to help small and midsize companies become more competitive.
“Ultimately, we hope that will really affect their supply chain,” she said.
The University of Illinois board is expected to allocate an additional $5 million to the effort at a special meeting Friday. UI Labs, a nonprofit, also is awaiting word on a $70 million federal grant for digital manufacturing. As part of the proposal, UI Labs, along with a team of other Midwest institutions, obtained promises for matching private contributions if it wins the grant. A decision is expected in January.
“The Illinois Manufacturing Lab is going to help our state remain a national leader in making quality products and creating good jobs,” Quinn said in a statement.
For instance, Gold Eagle Co. in Chicago, also picked for the launch, wants to make a “better, stronger bottle” that uses less plastic, said Jennifer Rook, a spokeswoman. The company fills about 1 million bottles a week with its fluids and additives.
“Lighter means taking some of the costs out of shipping; it means less cardboard to ship and less environmental waste,” Rook said.
Though the company has its own chemists, it doesn’t have a supercomputer or even know how to use one. That, she said, is where working with the lab will pay off.
Greg Perkolup, a product development manager at Tek Pak, with about 100 employees in Batavia and St. Charles, makes the kind of plastic packaging that takes “two scissors and a knife to open.” He plans to tap the lab to speed the design and creation of aluminum molds used in making those casings.
“The more efficient we can be, the better it is for everybody. If we can keep our lead time down, it helps our customers, it helps our bottom line,” he said.
The other Illinois manufacturing companies chosen to work with the initiative on initial pilot projects are: Tansco Products Inc. in Chicago, Raynor Manufacturing in Dixon, Premier Fabrication in Congerville, Excel Foundry in Pekin, Trelleborg Sealing Solutions in Streamwood, Morgan Bronze Products in Lake Zurich and Numerical Precision in Wheeling.
Twitter @littlewern