U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker on Friday toured UI Labs’ Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute on Goose Island and urged support for expanding a national network of facilities like it.
Pritzker led two members of Congress and a small gaggle of institute officials and journalists on a short walk around the 24,000-square-foot manufacturing floor, observing high-tech cutting and additive manufacturing tools.
At one stop she assembled a fuel injector for a diesel engine, with the help of a “light guide” system designed to improve worker efficiency.
Pritzker’s real goal, though, was to push President Obama’s budget request to expand the network of manufacturing institutes aimed at partnering with companies and research universities to boost the country’s manufacturing capability.
“We know that one-third of our economic growth comes from innovation,” Pritzker said in a short statement after the tour. “And to ensure that this growth is sustained, we must continue to make investments that lead to the next generation of technologies and products and processes.”
The President’s 2016 budget proposal calls for up to $1.9 billion in additional funding for as many as 45 new manufacturing institutes.
The Revitalize American Manufacturing Act
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last year funded nine institutes, with the money flowing through the U.S. departments of defense and energy.Chicago’s DMDII was among those. Others included one focusing on lightweight materials, based in Detroit, and one focusing on advanced composites, based in Knoxville, Tenn.
Pritzker emphasized that research proposals must come from industry partners and must be half-funded by the participating companies and universities. She said this ensures that the research will solve urgent industry problems and it forces partners to have “skin in the game.”
Also on the tour with here were U.S. Rep. Randy Hultgren (R, Il-14), whose district covers mostly rural areas to the west and north of Chicago, and Rep. Cheri Bustos (D, Il-17), whose district covers the northwest portion of the state, including Rockford and Peoria. Both expressed support for the program.
Dean Bartles, UI Labs’ chief manufacturing officer, said DMDII touts 125 member organizations from industry, government and the nonprofit/academic sectors.
Corporate members in the top two tiers of support include General Electric, Rolls-Royce, Boeing, Deere and Co., Microsoft and Caterpillar. All have pledged either $1 million or $2 million in funding support over five years, along with in-kind support in staffing and equipment, Bartles said.
Academic members, which include Northwestern University, the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, pledge to invest in their own research capabilities.
Companies and universities that work on the projects own the intellectual property generated by the research programs.
Smaller companies, along with community colleges, can join the institute for a nominal fee.
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