N. Central Explores Advanced Manufacturing Center
With the recession battering factories particularly hard, it might come as a welcome sliver of good news to manufacturers that the North Central Massachusetts Development Corp. is exploring the possibility of creating a center to offer research support, incubator space and training for local companies.
The group is now surveying businesses from the area to find out how valuable such resources would be to them, and so far many seem interested.
Robert Pontbriand, NCMDC’s director of economic development, said the “Advanced Manufacturing Center” idea is modeled on institutions elsewhere in the state, including an incubator facility in Fall River affiliated with the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth and the Nanomanufacturing Center at UMass Lowell, which works with companies including Boston Scientific, Raytheon and Nypro.
Pontbriand said it only makes sense for North Central to have something similar.
“In North Central Massachusetts, if we look at it, we have the largest concentration of manufacturers in the state and one of the largest plastics clusters in the state,” he said.
Pontbriand said if the center moves forward it could benefit from an increasing state focus on regional development efforts, and, possibly, from support from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, which helps fund local projects to support life science companies.
Although there is no University of Massachusetts campus in the North Central area, Pontbriand said the center might be able to build partnerships with Fitchburg State College and Mount Wachusett Community College in Gardner, as well as Worcester institutions like Clark University and Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and, perhaps, UMass Lowell.
“Those conversations will be starting shortly,” he said.
For now, he said, the development corporation is finishing up the survey, after extending the deadline from early June to the end of the month to allow for more input from local manufacturers. Once the results are in, they will form part of a concept paper designed to fuel conversations with state agencies and colleges and universities. Pontbriand said the paper should be finished by the end of the summer.
“We are trying to follow an aggressive timeline,” he said.
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