Dr. Alaa Elwany, assistant professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Texas A&M University, is the principal investigator on a team that was recently awarded a $200,000 contract from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The contract is part of a $1 million grant from the Department of Energy and a new manufacturing training program, Build4Scale, to help CleanTech Entrepreneurs bring their prototypes to the marketplace.
The team is comprised of Elwany, Dr. Michael Johnson and Dr. Bimal Nepal from the Department of Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution at Texas A&M.
“CleanTech entrepreneurs commonly struggle with moving their ideas from the prototype stage to mass production due to the lack of targeted training to address this issue,” Elwany said. “Our team will work with the Build4Scale team to close this gap through building a training regimen to support the scale-up of hardware production.”
Courses will provide engineers and entrepreneurs with steps to expand production, including product design, material selection, quality control, sustainability, supply chain management and working with vendors.
“We will leverage our expertise to develop content focusing on material selection and advanced manufacturing processes,” Johnson said. “Knowing the various technologies available and getting access to design will enable entrepreneurs and engineers to quickly get a viable product and bring it to the marketplace.”
Trainings will include an online element and will eventually be offered nationally through startup incubators, the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), universities, community colleges and national labs.
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