Global innovation center comes to Troy
New manufacturing hub opens Monday in the Automation Alley offices
The U.S. Centre for Advanced Manufacturing, created by the World Economic Forum, will locate to Automation Alley’s Troy offices. The hub is the result of a partnership with the Michigan Economic Development Corporation and Oakland County and announced Wednesday during the Detroit Chamber of Commerce’s Mackinac Island policy conference.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said the move puts Michigan in a better position for manufacturing not just automotive parts, but for lifesaving medical devices, aerospace and defense equipment.
Plastics, lightweight carbon parts, machinery and robotics all play a role in expanding the state’s manufacturing base, she said.
“We’re creating goodpaying jobs in the process,” she said.
The World Economic Forum’s decision to pick Michigan, she said, is further proof of the state’s strengths, and creates an opportunity for “unmatched growth.”
Dave Coulter, Oakland County’s executive, said he is “extremely proud” that the World Economic Forum’s first and only US advanced manufacturing center will open in Troy next week. He remains “bullish on manufacturing,” he said, which is linked to 67,000 jobs in the county.
The resource will not only boost small and medium manufacturers in Oakland County, but throughout the state, region, and North America, he said, by upgrading companies’ technology, and networking them so they can bid on bigger contracts.
“I hope this sends a message to the world that Michigan is no longer the Rust Belt,” he said, adding that embracing innovation and new technology positions the county, in partnership with Automation Alley, to lead the nation and the world in manufacturing.
For the county’s part, a $3 million investment over the next three years will aid
more than 2,500 small and medium businesses.
Some of that assistance has already been delivered by way of the country’s partnership with Automation Alley to launch Project Diamond. So far, 250 digital printers have been placed in area businesses.
Coulter cited Rochester Hills-based Air and Liquid Systems for using a digital printer to save money. A part that once cost $98 to produce, now costs less than $3, Coulter said. Because the company is digitally networked with other manufacturers, they can bid on bigger contracts.
Tom Kelly, Automation Alley’s executive director and CEO, opened his remarks with a simple, but loud, “Whoo hoo!”
He thanked Whitmer, Coulter and the county commission’s chairman, Dave Woodward, for their help adding that such partnerships don’t happen overnight.
Kelly said negotiations were “methodical, very carefully orchestrated relationships” built with the Geneva-based World Economic Forum. County officials got involved in negotiations in January.
Kelly joined Automation Alley in 2016 and started talks with the World Economic Forum in 2018. In 2019, the two groups formed what Kelly told The Oakland Press was “a true partnership.” The economic forum started in 1971; Automation Alley has been in existence for 20 years. Cynthia Hutchison, Automation Alley’s vice president, will run the new center. She led work at the Troy-based Advanced Manufacturing hub.
Francisco Betti, an international business developer who works with the World Economic Forum on advanced manufacturing issues, said it may surprise people that the forum’s attention appears diverted from global climate change and food insecurity.
Betti explained the forum is “an international organization for public-private cooperation, that addresses some of the most-pressing issues in the world.”
Advanced manufacturing, he said, is a step toward better stewardship of resources, because digital efficiency can “transform the world by helping with sustainability and workforce engagement.”
Arabinda “AB” Ghosh, chairman and CEO of the Hemlock, MI-based Hemlock Semiconductor, said the new center will help ensure future success of the company. Hemlock Semiconductor, founded in 1961, produces ultra-pure silicon, a fundamental building block for computer chips and the batteries that have become so critical for advanced manufacturing.
Learn more at automationalley.com.