New Purdue lab aims to grow manufacturing research
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Purdue University on Friday will mark the founding of its Manufacturing and Materials Research Laboratories (MMRL). The university said the effort brings together 10 faculty from different engineering disciplines to boost manufacturing research, funding and industry collaboration.
Arvind Raman, the John A. Edwardson Dean of the College of Engineering at Purdue, said the MMRL will be an umbrella organization with experimental facilities for physical domain manufacturing.
“This will allow us to have a stronger outward projection to industry partners and federal agencies and promote collaborations leading to federal funding, industry linkups and workforce development,” Raman said in a news release.
Educational and workforce development will be a key component to the initiative, Purdue said. The MMRL will work to create interdisciplinary, manufacturing-related master’s degrees, executive education programs, and undergraduate minors and certificates.
Another goal is to increase Purdue’s intellectual property portfolio, specifically related to manufacturing science end engineering.
“For Purdue and the state of Indiana, establishing advanced infrastructure like MMRL in physical manufacturing to complement digital as well as sustainable manufacturing is mission-critical for leading the nation and building coalitions,” said Ajay Malshe, the inaugural director of MMRL. “This builds upon Purdue’s rich tradition in manufacturing innovations and its translation to the real world, and Indiana has one of the highest densities of manufacturing in the union.”
Purdue said the MMRL is the one of the first offshoots of the university’s eXcellence in Manufacturing Operations, or XMO, initiative.