The Federal government is funding and supporting the establishment of 14 high tech manufacturing hubs in various cities across the country where industry, governments, universities, community colleges and businesses can work together to develop new manufacturing technologies. The manufacturing hubs will be assigned to regions where they will be best suited, and will each focus on an individual area of expertise from 3D printing in Youngstown, Ohio; wide band gap semiconductors in Raleigh, North Carolina; lightweight and modern metals in Canton, Michigan; and more. In fact, we are excited to note that on Tuesday, February 25th, Chicago's very own Goose Island was selected as one of the next locations for a manufacturing hub, to focus on digital manufacturing and technologies.

In an industry that has seen a recent boost, adding more than half a million jobs since 2010, many believe these hubs can help America get back into the high-tech manufacturing game. So what is high tech manufacturing? While it can have a variety of meanings, in many cases high tech is used to refer to anything dealing with electronics manufacturing.  In old line manufactures it may simply mean a new robotically controlled machine.  I think a better term would be advanced manufacturing.

According to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology Advanced Manufacturing is:

“A family of activities that (a) depend on the use and coordination of information, automation, computation, software, sensing, and networking, and/or (b) make use of cutting edge materials and emerging capabilities enabled by the physical and biological sciences, for example nanotechnology, chemistry, and biology. This involves both new ways to manufacture existing products, and especially the manufacture of new products emerging from new advanced technologies.”

Additional information regarding high tech manufacturing can be found at:

• http://manufacturing.gov/
• http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-high-tech-manufacturing.htm
• http://www.npr.org/