Valois: State developing plans for design center

Valois
Valois

Rhode Island’s manufacturers, particularly small ones, can’t always afford consulting services when designing new products or re-engineering old ones. But, for a fee, they may be able to access such services through a proposed state center for design and manufacturing.
The idea is integral to a business plan Marcel A. Valois, the executive director of the R.I. Commerce Corporation, is developing that will include “sensitivity analysis” to see if the state’s manufacturers are willing to pay for such services, and if so, how much. He expects to complete the business plan by September, and the sensitivity analysis will be just one piece.
Valois learned in June that Rhode Island was not designated as one of 12 “manufacturing communities” in the country that, by virtue of the designation, could be given preference for $1.3 billion in federal assistance through the U.S. Economic Development Administration, a division of the U.S. Department of Commerce.
The EDA’s program is called the Investing In Manufacturing Communities Partnership.
However, plans to develop this state center for design and manufacturing surfaced well before Valois applied for the designation in April. Valois will reapply for the designation again in a new competitive round when the EDA provides details, though that step is not what is driving the effort today, Valois said.
The business plan is alluded to in the state’s action plan to become more competitive economically by focusing, in part, on “Fueling the Manufacturing Renaissance.”
“We are working toward developing a center for design and manufacturing and we will continue to work on this business plan,” he said in multiple interviews with Providence Business News. “If it’s done properly, we’ll be able to go to EDA and look for funding, whether or not we’re a designated manufacturing community. We are eligible today for those programs.
“So with the business plan in hand, we feel we can apply for funding,” he said.
The EDA could not be reached to elaborate on why Rhode Island was not selected, but information on its website indicates another round of designations can be applied for in the coming year.
Federal funds could become available to build such a center, but the cost of operating it would have to be self-sustaining, Valois said. That’s where the sensitivity analysis comes in.
“It’s going to be critical,” he said, because federal agencies all require funding applicants to demonstrate how a program is sustainable. “We want to be able to have a hard plan in place [that describes] how the center would operate, what the fee would be, so when we go in for funding, we’ll have a foot in the door.”
Valois said he intends to have “a lot of conversations one on one with manufacturers to make sure the service scope is of value to them, and do some market analysis to identify what a company is willing to pay after the subsidy goes away to support administration [of such services].”
Valois has been conferring regularly with key partners for the center, including Bill McCourt, executive director of the Rhode Island Manufacturers Association; Ray Fogarty, director of the Chafee Center for International Business at Bryant University; Harsha Prakash, center director of the Polaris MEP; and Katharine Hazard Flynn, executive director of the Business Engagement Center at the University of Rhode Island.
“What we did prove [by applying for the designation] is there is a tangible project. This is something we feel is worthwhile: there is a high level of interest from all the colleges,” said McCourt.
The Rhode Island School of Design is also part of the conversation.
“If you want to keep talent in Rhode Island and continue relationships with those in manufacturing, you have to provide resources to do that,” said Babette Allina, RISD executive director for government relations and external affairs.
The state center would be “a natural place for us to be,” she added, “because historically RISD was founded by manufacturing families, so it’s part of our DNA. We continue to be a place where processes and ideas are made. At RISD, we talk not only about product development but how design influences manufacturing even more directly.”
Part of RISD’s 2012-17 strategic plan includes setting up a “center of critical making and innovation” on campus. Tentatively called “Co-Works,” it would foster traditional and advanced maker technologies and is scheduled to open in September, Allina said. While she said she could not provide more concrete details, she noted that that center could work in concert with the state’s center for design and manufacturing.
A $100,000 Commerce Department grant, matched by $25,000 from the R.I. Commerce Corp. and $25,000 from the Rhode Island Foundation, has made developing the business plan possible, Valois said.
Much of what will be part of that business plan was included in a 30-page abstract that served as the application for manufacturing-community designation. The concept for the center has been dubbed STEAMengine.
STEAMengine would be both a physical and virtual network that will help manufacturers pursue innovations and develop cost efficiencies for everything from energy to health benefits, Valois said.
Key elements to the center are outreach and engagement for members and so-called “design readiness assessments” that help manufacturers “plot a path” as they seek to re-engineer existing products or create new ones. New educational or certificate programs also could be developed to help workers get the credentials they need to work for these manufacturers, the abstract states.
Prakash says the center will take the networking these entities and many of the state’s colleges and universities are already doing to the next level, providing access to “all resources at one time so you’re not wasting your time running all over the place.”
Right now, if a manufacturer was to create a new prototype for a product, it would assess viability as an export through the Chafee center, explore what it would take to put into mass production through Polaris and examine regulatory issues through RIMA, he said.
In contrast, at the proposed center, though contact with these and other agencies would continue, “you would have dedicated people to do it: someone would manage it between all of the entities and develop a pipeline to keep it going.”
Added Valois: “This is the way of providing a level of service to existing manufacturers that doesn’t exist today in the marketplace in a cost-efficient manner. There are a lot of places that offer pieces of the business equation. This is a network that will help bring these pieces together.
“Let’s make it easy to get things done,” he said. “That’s government’s role.” •

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