Allegheny College recently expanded the Allegheny Lab for Innovation and Creativity (ALIC) to add work force development and education resources.
The expansion is in partnership with the regional precision manufacturing industry.
“When regional manufacturers identified a critical need for options to train their work force, the leadership at Allegheny College immediately began to explore ways in which they could assist,” said Jim Becker, Economic Progress Alliance of Crawford County executive director. “By building on the ALIC model and expanding industry offerings, manufacturing businesses now have a local educational partner positioned to upskill the existing workforce in order to meet continuous technological advancements. This partnership between regional manufacturers and Allegheny College will have an immediate and long-lasting positive impact on Crawford County and the greater Northwest PA region.”
The newly opened ALIC @ Bessemer is designed to mimic a real-world environment to provide industry partners with off-site training and onboarding opportunities so they can avoid shutting down production line for this purpose.
Manufacturing equipment in the facility was selected based on the input of 25 organizations throughout Western Pennsylvania.
Equipment includes additive manufacturing, automation technologies, five-axis CNC machines, electrical discharge machining, mechatronics, research laboratories, quality assurance technologies, and computer labs.
The first industry workshops were on Solidworks, a 3D modeling software.