U.S. Manufacturing Day technically was Oct. 2. But thanks to a long list of organizers and promoters (including CIRAS, Elevate Iowa, Iowa State University Extension and Outreach, and community colleges around the state) the celebration in Iowa continues throughout the rest of October.
An Ankeny-based plastics injection molder landed new business and launched new growth after the firm was able to prove its capabilities via testing arranged last year at Iowa State University.
Accumold, a company that makes small plastic parts for a variety of technology and medical devices, announced plans in February for a $12 million expansion that will add 200 jobs at its Ankeny plant over the next three years.
AMES – An unprecedented and heavily coordinated educational campaign means Iowans throughout the state will have easy access in October to a wide variety of events touting the benefits of a career in manufacturing.
So far, more than 2,000 happenings have been scheduled across the U.S. to celebrate National Manufacturing Day on Oct. 2. Events such as factory tours and educational seminars will be held both on Friday and beyond in a bid to tout the extraordinary opportunities available in American manufacturing.
ISU’s Engineering-LAS Online Learning recently launched new online master’s degree programs in engineering management and business analytics. Both are collaborative efforts with the Iowa State University College of Business.
This time next year, CIRAS expects to be settling into brand new offices at the Iowa State University Research Park in a new building that will, for the first time, pull together most of Iowa State’s economic development services into a single location.
The new building, to be known as the Iowa State University Economic Development Core Facility, will anchor an area called “Hub Square”—the new main gathering space for the 400-acre research park.
Donna Dau’s goal for each of the last three years has been to replace as few employees as possible.
But shrinking that number in the future means a lot of recruitment right now—both of new workers and of the new companies that Dau hopes will help her expand on a potentially groundbreaking way of dealing with Iowa’s looming shortage of skilled laborers.
Iowa businesses want to know more about automation, and CIRAS is working on ways to help them.
CIRAS currently is looking to expand its automation support capabilities and could have more details available about that in the coming months.
A new series of BizWise regional peer forums is launching this year as part of an ongoing effort by CIRAS and the Iowa Association of Business and Industry (ABI) to help Iowa business professionals stay ahead of the curve and perform at their peak.
For four decades, Dr. Wilmot Wijeratne has studied natural grain production and ways to bring the best products to consumers. He was instrumental in developing the basic technique for extracting excess oil from soybeans, and he helped create a process to do that on a large scale.
Now, Wijeratne, director of food technology for Harvest Innovations, is looking at legumes—lentils, chickpeas, and garbanzo beans—to feed the latest needs of savvy shoppers.
A long and profitable relationship between CIRAS and Indianola-based Harvest Innovations is expected to substantially boost the company’s sales, thanks largely to CIRAS-arranged work that helped perfect a technique for extracting proteins from legumes.