The “renaissance of manufacturing” has begun, and United States Congressman Glenn Thompson is pleased to report that Penn State is playing a big role its development.
Thompson helped Penn State welcome hundreds of representatives from various companies and industries across the country to a national forum on the future of additive manufacturing, more commonly known as 3D printing.
Neil Sharkey, Penn State’s vice-president for research, told the crowd in the Penn State Conference Hotel on Thursday that when 3D printing was first developed in 1980’s, it wasn’t expected to become the versatile manufacturing process it is today.
“Today, you can create a working automobile, a working acoustic guitar and even food – the highest tech cheese whiz you’ve ever seen,” Sharkey said, prompting laughter.
Penn State has recognized the growing possibilities of additive manufacturing for business and industry based on its rapid growth over the past 30 years, Sharkey said.
The university helps operates a 3D printing laboratory known as the Center for Innovative Materials Processing through Direct Digital Deposition (CIMP-3D). Penn State, in addition to being home a student 3D printing club, is also developing graduate and undergraduate minors in additive manufacturing.
But where will this technology take the university, private enterprise and the global market over the next 30 years? That remains to be seen – and that’s what the multi-day forum is going to help figure out.
“We have the potential to achieve so much here in Pennsylvania,” university president Eric Barron said in his greeting at the forum. “We have the workforce, and we have unparalleled educational opportunities.”
For Barron, the cooperation of institutions like Penn State and companies like those at the forum is essential for driving the national economy forward. Together, Penn State and private enterprise can take advantage of the “truly transformative ability to change manufacturing” through 3D printing.
“Building up the infrastructure of small and medium combines in additive manufacturing is essential if we are to be productive in this field,” Barron said.
For Thompson, he sees the growth of 3D printing as the return of the manufacturing industry to the United States – an industry that has consistently been shrinking year after year. But to create these new manufacturing jobs, private companies and universities will have to work hard to develop new ways to apply this technology into the future.
“Innovation is a key ingredient in the recipe for the renaissance of manufacturing,” Thompson said.
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