The Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute (DMDII), part of the Manufacturing USA network, and McKinsey & Company have launched the North American Digital Capability Center (DCC), a space for hands-on training in next-generation digital manufacturing technology. Based in Chicago, the center will help established, small, and start-up businesses gain the capabilities to benefit from and produce new digital manufacturing innovations in operations, design, and productivity.
The North American Digital Capability Center’s mock production line will include the high-performing, digitally driven production equipment of the future that incorporates advanced analytics, augmented reality and digital assistance for the operators. In the coming months, it will include collaborative robots (cobots) and artificial intelligence.
The North American DCC is housed in a 94,000 square-foot collaboration studio and manufacturing floor at UI LABS, operator of the Department of Defense-funded DMDII. The North American DCC is digitally connected to four additional McKinsey DCC’s in Singapore, Aachen (Germany), Beijing (China), and Venice (Italy).
Leaders from 50 UI LABS partner organizations will participate in trainings at the center in its first month of operation. Key partners Microsoft, Tulip, OSIsoft, and Scope AR contribute real-world technologies to the center’s functioning refrigerator compressor production line. Bulova Technologies Machinery LLC donated equipment.