The Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation® (IACMI), also known as IACMI–The Composites Institute®, celebrates today a decade of revitalizing American manufacturing and strengthening the nation’s defense industrial base. Established by the Department of Energy (DOE), IACMI was announced as the fifth of now 17 Manufacturing USA® institutes on January 9, 2015.
For 10 years, IACMI has played a pivotal role in America’s reindustrialization, aiming to secure its position as a global leader in manufacturing innovation and workforce development. Reshoring initiatives have been key to bolstering U.S. economic and national security. Through multiple national workforce programs sponsored by DOE and the Department of Defense (DoD), IACMI has been inspiring, educating, and training a skilled workforce to help address the projected 4.6 million open manufacturing jobs in the coming decade.
IACMI’s impact for economic growth has been clear in four primary ways:
- Public-Private Collaborations – convening more than 170 members and 4,500 professionals from industry, academia, and federal labs to tackle the composites industry’s toughest challenges in automotive, aerospace, wind, infrastructure and the circular economy
- Technical Innovation – connecting 90+ of its members to conduct 60+ industry-led R&D projects that helped commercialize 25 products, advance the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of numerous technologies, and create hundreds of design, engineering, and manufacturing jobs
- Workforce Development – catalyzing IACMI, ACE, and METAL programs to enable
- 100+ internships with industry collaboration, resulting in 100 percent placement in industry jobs or higher education
- 18,300+ STEM outreach engagements
- 12,400+ trained online across 50 states in CNC machining
- 5,100+ trained in-person in CNC, metrology, composites, and metallurgy
- 40 machine tool training centers in 14 states
- Leveraging Resources – providing open access to over $400M in scale up facilities across 8 states has led to an additional $200M+ for companies, universities, national labs, and workforce initiatives
