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Connection to global organizations raises CU-ICAR profile |
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Tuesday, 26 June 2007 |
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Photo by Denton Harryman / The Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research.
By Shelia Watson
When Bob Kiggans, president of the S.C. Research Authority’s Federal Sector, was appointed to serve on a global collaborative organization involved with research and development of best practices in manufacturing, one of the first things he did was look to Clemson University’s International Center for Automotive Research.
As the U.S. head of delegation to the Intelligent Manufacturing Systems program under the U.S. Department of Commerce, Kiggans was able to appoint Tom Kurfess, the BMW chair of manufacturing at Clemson and director of the Carroll A. Campbell Graduate Engineering Center, to the academic team on the Global Education in Manufacturing initiative.
“Working with the GEM initiative, (Kurfess) will pursue a manufacturing processes curriculum for colleges and universities,” Kiggans said.
Working with the IMS program has put the CU-ICAR program and the state on the world map and, according to Kiggans, at the forefront of innovation for manufacturing.
“Clemson will play a leading role in the GEM program,” Kiggans said. “IMS offers a platform for industrial researchers to share experiences and best practices and to develop a common global vision for manufacturing technology.”
The IMS program, launched in 1995 as a global, industry-led collaborative research and development program, is an international consortium comprised of business, government and academic leaders from seven regions: Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, Korea, Switzerland and the United States. Its goal is to develop the next generation of manufacturing and processing technologies.
Kurfess has attended various GEM conferences and other IMS meetings and has planned a national summit to review and discuss GEM deployment opportunities throughout the United States.
“We know that in the end, all supply chains are global,” Kurfess said. “We’re dealing with global issues and we know we have to compete. The question is whether we’ll have engineers available. And that’s why education is so important.”
Kurfess joined the Clemson faculty in 2005 to lead the automotive engineering program, which is the academic focus of CU-ICAR, and to serve as director of the Carroll A. Campbell Jr. Graduate Engineering Center on the CU-ICAR campus. He is a professor of mechanical engineering.
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