Future of manufacturing: Industry Trends & Analysis

When a federally funded organization lands in my hometown of Chicago, where transparency at City Hall is murky at best, I tend to think “boondoggle.”

Therefore, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute at Chicago’s Goose Island didn’t appear to be a wasteful project.

I visited DMDII Sept. 3 to attend “The Future of Machining – A Guide to Better Processes.” Coordinated by Blaser Swisslube Inc., Goshen, N.Y., the event featured presentations about toolholders, high-pressure coolant, minimum-quantity lubrication and chlorinated paraffins as an extreme-pressure additive in metalworking fluids.

The meeting also included equipment demos and a tour of the factory floor. The national institute, which is housed in a 94,000-sq.-ft. facility that serves as the headquarters for DMDII and its parent organization, UI LABS, began operation in May. It has three principal missions: R&D projects, outreach to manufacturers and workforce development.

The factory floor is comprised of seven cells: multiaxis complex machining, standard machining, emerging technologies, a metrology laboratory, welding and fabrication, microtechnology, and electronics and assembly. The emerging technologies cell, for example, has a 5-axis vertical machining center and will reportedly expand to include a 3D printer, robotics and optical scanning equipment.