During the 2013 session, the Iowa Legislature stepped up with bipartisan support to approve funding for the creation of the Iowa Advanced Manufacturing Center (IAMC).

The IAMC is being established in partnership with the Iowa Innovation Corporation and Iowa Economic Development Authority. It will be a center of collaboration among those organizations listed above and many other “partners” and “users” such as  many programs and centers within UNI and Hawkeye Community College, Wartburg’s manufacturing engineering program, ISU’s CIRAS/MEP, and others. It will be available to you and other Iowa manufacturers and product innovators to increase competitiveness and commercialization of new products.

“The realization of the IAMC moves the TechWorks Campus plan ahead, said TechWorks board Chair Tim Hurley. “ IAMC creates the center of thinking and action, physical and virtual, that has always been a part of our vision, he said. “ We could not have accomplished this without the leadership of Waterloo’s Sen. Bill Dotzler and enthusiastic bipartisan leadership of our Cedar Valley delegation and support throughout the legislature, IIC and IEDA for manufacturing’s leading role in Iowa’s economy. That it’s happening in TechWorks is our dream coming true,” Hurley concluded.

The IAMC is programmed to include such uses as these examples:

• Owned and operated by UNI’s Metal Casting Center, a large format 3D printer will be installed in the existing industrial lab space of the Tech 1 building on the TechWorks Campus. The large scale equipment, using polymer media, will be among the only of its kind in North America. The Metal Casting Center will provide access to this highly sophisticated equipment to manufacturing firms on a contract basis.
• The Alliance & Chamber and TechWorks are collaborating with UNI to make existing lab facilities available to Iowa firms on a fee-for-time or project basis.
• It is expected to install one and perhaps two 4 and 5 wall Computer Aided Virtual Reality Environment structures in the lab floor.
• Improve the Tech 1 building:
  • Docks and overhead doors will be installed, along with required mechanical and electrical improvements.
  • Space will be available for advanced manufacturing operations to lease, and
  • Hawkeye Community College is establishing its green/sustainable construction methods program

Planning is underway for improvements, which will be underway later in 2013. Contact Steve Dust or Cary Darrah regarding IAMC programming.