State is pursuing regional manufacturing cluster

Rhode Island leaders see larger prizes for the manufacturing sector on the horizon after securing a $100,000 U.S. Commerce Department grant last month to plan an advanced industry design center.
When the plans are completed next year, state officials intend to apply for up to $25 million in a second round of grants from the same source to build the design center.
And larger still is a $70 million U.S. Defense Department grant that, although shared with seven other states, would create a cybersecurity center at the University of Rhode Island as part of a new Digital Manufacturing & Design Institute.
Combined, the two initiatives, if they come to pass, would help develop a regional advanced-manufacturing cluster with potential for spinoffs and provide a range of services for existing manufacturers.
“We have not written off manufacturing,” said Marcel A. Valois, executive director of the R.I. Economic Development Corporation, which is leading the state’s participation in both grant efforts. “We think it has tremendous growth potential, but it is going to look different than it has.”
As Obama administration officials had hoped, this series of federal manufacturing grants has spurred states across the country into a flurry of study and strategy sessions on how to take advantage of them.
Planning began here with Manufacturing 2,500, a collaboration between the EDC, Chafee Center for International Business at Bryant University, Rhode Island Manufacturers Extension Service and Rhode Island Manufacturing Association, to compile information on exactly what manufacturing resources exist in the state.
The group has been systematically surveying Rhode Island manufacturing companies, starting with the largest and moving down to those with only a handful of workers.
The $100,000 Commerce Department grant, matched by $25,000 from the EDC and $25,000 from The Rhode Island Foundation, will build on that effort and plan a manufacturing design center based on the expertise developed by the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence.
Valois said the first step would be to release a request for proposals in the next two to three weeks for a consultant to lead the planning process. The consultant would then reach out to companies and work with a planning committee comprised of trade groups and nonprofits to figure out what kind of facility is most needed.
The planning committee will, at minimum have representatives from RISD, Brown University, Bryant, the Manufacturers Association, the Rhode Island Marine Trade Association and the Southeastern New England Defense Industry Alliance.
Rhode Island Manufacturers Association Executive Director Bill McCourt said he envisioned the Rhode Island manufacturing center as a facility in Providence where companies could, for example, work with teams from Brown or RISD on advanced equipment to test a new prototype.
Or it could be a place where workforce training would be organized for manufacturers crying out for employees qualified to operate advanced machinery.
Ray Fogarty, director of Bryant’s Chafee Center for International Business, said Manufacturing 2,500 had given Rhode Island a head start on winning the grant.
Fogarty said 3-D printing and exports were two areas he could see the Rhode Island center working on.
“My mantra is to help companies increase their exports, increase sales and create service jobs on top of that,” he said. “If you sell $200,000 more of exports, you create a manufacturing job and create three service jobs on top of that. It is a big multiplier.”
The $70 million Defense Department grant would create a New England Digital Design and Manufacturing Institute to be operated and shared in a partnership between the region’s six states and, in current plans, New York.
New England’s bid for the grant is being led by The Charles Stark Draper Laboratories Inc, a Cambridge, Mass., nonprofit research organization that works on space, energy, health care and security problems.
John Riendeau, director of business development at the EDC, said in this context digital manufacturing means translating the latest technology into methods to make computing and information tools. In other words, how will we make the computer chip of the future?
The final grant application deadline is Oct. 11 and right now its plans for the institute include 11 separate centers of excellence plus a central “hub” at Draper Labs in Cambridge. •

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