My kind of town, Chicago is

With apologies to Frank Sinatra, Chicago may again be “my kind of (manufacturing) town.” At least that’s what a torrent of media coverage and press releases would lead you to believe following the news that Chicago had won the bid to host a digital manufacturing institute.

In late February, President Obama said Chicago’s Goose Island neighborhood would house the new Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute (DMDII), backed by $250 million from 41 companies, $70 million from the U.S. Department of Defense and $16 million from the state of Illinois. In addition, 23 universities, labs and other organizations are involved in the venture, which will be operated by UI Labs, a nonprofit spinoff of the University of Illinois.

It is hoped that DMDII will give Chicago, once a bustling factory town, a chance to become a modern manufacturing center.

As a resident of Chicagoland, I’m glad to see investment in manufacturing coming our way. If DMDII succeeds, it will help the rest of the country as well.

DMDII will focus on helping manufacturers use the latest digital technologies to work and create virtually. Potential projects include creating lighter, more powerful jet engines, reducing material waste in small-lot manufacturing and speeding product design.

DMDII will also be a classroom to train engineers, product designers and machinists. Manufacturing experts and university researchers are expected to work together on complex issues, and researchers will get help commercializing new technologies.

Commenting on the venture, Ray Johnson, senior vice president and chief technology officer for Lockheed Martin, said: “Advanced manufacturing is a competitive game-changer, bringing our nation’s research, engineering and production communities together. The combination of advanced materials, high-performance computing resources, modeling and simulation tools, and additive manufacturing practices is allowing large and small enterprises alike to design and build otherwise impossibly complex shapes and systems while reducing manufacturing costs and cycle times.”