CUED
Center
for Urban Economic Development
University of Illinois at Chicago
Target
Industry Case Study for
The Illinois Research and Development Corridor
Project Number: 364
Report Date: July 1992
Author(s): Virginia Carlson, William Howard
During the spring and summer of 1992, the Illinois Research and Development Corridor (IRDC) asked the University of Illinois at Chicago Center for Urban Economic Development (CUED) to undertake studies of three industries targeted for business retention, expansion and attraction efforts. The work completed in these months was seen as a preliminary look at the industries, to inform a much broader set of studies to be undertaken in phase two (July 1992 to June 1993). The main purposes of phase one were to 1) identify general market, geographic and structural characteristics of the industries and important firms; 2) investigate the possibilities for new regional supplier-producer linkages among firms across sectors; 3) identify potential sources of occupational need; and, 4) begin identifying other issues of importance to the health of the industry. The industries consist of commercial printing (SIC Code 2750), electronic components and communications equipment (SIC Codes 3660 and 3670), and computer software (SIC Code 7371). Included in this report are our findings with respect to employment and establishment trends, major companies, county economic impacts and linkages and occupational needs. The following pages discuss each of the industries separately.
Overall, we found that all three of these industries have been and will continue to be greatly affected by rapid changes resulting from the advent of electronic and computer technology. These changes have affected both the nature of products and the nature of the work involved in producing these products. Occupational training programs need to keep pace with the occupational requirements these changes are demanding. However, each of the industries is important to the IRDC area for somewhat different reasons. Commercial printing tends to be a regional industry and thus the industry in the MC area benefits from its proximity to office development in and surrounding Chicago. As development continues to disperse from Chicago's central location to farther-out suburbs, the IRDC area should expect employment in commercial printing to rise. Communications equipment and electronic components encompass a wide variety of products, from smoke alarms to cellular communications, and this variety is one of the industry's strengths. Growth of this industry in the IRDC area is unparalleled at the national level. Several strong companies have attributed to much of this expansion: Tellabs Inc., Rockwell International, Molex, Inc., Pittway Corporation and DuKane. Computer software enjoys a particular advantage in the IRDC corridor, with a growth rate vastly outstripping that of the industry in Illinois. Like commercial printing, a business service as is the computer software industry, the industry in the IRDC area benefits from its proximity to business centers in and around Chicago.
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