Engineers in the Quad Cities will work with a new lab in Chicago to help companies improve their factory production lines. The manufacturing lab on Arsenal Island will soon finalize a contract with the Digital Lab, GE Global Research, and three companies. They'll develop and test hardware and software for machining systems.
Dr. Eric Faierson, Interim Director of the Quad Cities lab, says he and his employees will work with Sivyer Steel in Bettendorf to help improve its metal casting process.
That's just one example of many jobs the group will tackle over the one-and-a-half-year project. Faierson says the Quad Cities lab already experiments with metal, 3-D printing. And this collaboration will help provide the resources needed to design and build specialized 3-D printers, robots, and computer programs.
Half of the funding for the $2.3 million project will come from the six organizations, with the other half from the federal government. The local manufacturing lab's part of the bill is $283,000. But Faierson says there are a number of ways to pay it, such as sharing equipment and labor.
