Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

New Training Center Will Put Kentucky at the Forefront of Changes in Manufacturing

  • 05/13/15

LOUISVILLE, KY – The soon-to-open UL Additive Manufacturing Competency Center (AMCC) on the University of Louisville’s Belknap Campus will help ensure that Kentucky remains at the forefront of the rapidly evolving manufacturing sector.

The center, which is scheduled to open this fall, will train engineers and other professionals from around the world on sophisticated 3D printing and other additive manufacturing machinery.

It will aid in the “critical development of the skills that it will take for us to move into a new space,” Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear says. “Those regions that don’t continue to keep up will be left behind.”

UofL is opening the new training center with UL LLC, the Northbrook, IL-based global science safety company. It will be located in the J.B. Speed School of Engineering’s Institute for Product Realization. Its neighbors will be the FirstBuild micro-factory and the newly opened Engineering Education Garage, which houses space for student projects.

The UL AMCC will offer hands-on training in additive manufacturing, focusing on metals. Curriculum will cover design set up and corrections, machine assembly, and parts production, inspection, testing and validation.

The training will teach students how to produce metal parts, establish safety systems and identify hazards in the emerging field of additive manufacturing.

UofL President James Ramsey says the new center is “an important piece of who we are as a university” because it will help workers improve their skills to fill jobs in a changing field. “We think this raises the bar in many ways,” he says.

Classes are scheduled to begin at the UL AMCC in October, with a goal of training 100 workers before the end of the year. That figure is expected to steadily grow, before topping out at around 900 students in 2019.

The training that the workers receive here will allow them to “adopt new technology quickly and safely,” according to UL CEO Keith Williams.

Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer said he believes the center will enhance the city’s reputation as “a place to come” to participate in the additive manufacturing movement. It is important, he said, for the city to entice some of the students who come here to remain and bring their businesses to the city.

Featured

  • Rethinking K-12 Schools as a Continuous Learning Experience

    Most students move through three or more separate facilities during their K-12 journey, yet the built environments they encounter at each stage have traditionally been designed in isolation, with little continuity in spatial language, learning philosophy, or physical resources. Each new school is a reset with different layouts, learning models, expectations, and ways of moving through a building. The next generation of school design is making the case that the first day of kindergarten and the last day of high school can and should feel connected through common support systems and infrastructure in the physical environment.

  • Planning with Clarity: Using AI to Make Better Campus Decisions, Not Just Better Designs

    Higher education leaders are being asked to make increasingly high-stakes decisions about campus facilities amid greater uncertainty than ever before. Social and economic pressures, shifting enrollment, and evolving learning models compete with growing deferred maintenance needs to strain even the most robust infrastructure budgets.

  • Virginia Tech Tops Out New College of Engineering Building

    Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., recently celebrated the topping out of Mitchell Hall, which will soon stand as the largest College of Engineering building on campus, according to a news release. The university partnered with Skanska on the 285,500-square-foot facility, which has an expected completion date of winter 2028.

  • Children walking along bright school corridor with motion blur

    How Next-Gen Design Is Reshaping the Student Experience

    The environments where students learn play a crucial role in shaping their growth in and out of the classroom. By centering design on well-being, flexibility, and purpose, districts can ensure their facilities remain vibrant community assets for many years to come.