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The Manufacturing Research Center
(MRC) is jointly run by the two campuses of the University of Illinois:
the Chicago Campus and the Urbana Champaign Campus.
History
The Manufacturing Research Center (MRC) was founded in 1988 as a result of
a grant received from Motorola. Motorola awarded grants to three
Universities (each $ 200K per year, over five years, MIT, University of
Illinois, Georgia Tech) to sponsor research activities on manufacturing
technologies. Since then the following companies joined the MRC: GM, Ford,
Caterpillar, John Deere, Ingersoll Milling Co, Rockford Acromatic, Sun
Micro Systems. Current annual operating budget of MRC is about $1M.
Purpose
The purpose of MRC is to be a technology power house in manufacturing
related technologies. MRC has teams of engineers focused on different
aspects of manufacturing technologies. Expert team of engineers focus on
the
- development of new state of art manufacturing
technologies,
- closely follow all of the new technologies in
the world,
- disseminate these technologies to the students
and member companies.
Organization
MRC is a center jointly run by the two campuses of University of Illinois
(U of I): Chicago Campus and Urbana Campus. MRC draws faculty expertise
from various departments within the University. It is intended to break the
boundaries between departments and encourage interdisciplinary
collaborative research and development activities. Under MRC, member
companies pay membership fees. The fees are combined to sponsor significant
focused research in areas common interest to all members.
Intellectual Property
Under MRC bylaws, a company can sponsor a project and the results of the
project can be kept confidential as well as that the company can have
exclusive rights to licensing technologies developed.
Current
Focus Areas
- Assembly Technology
- Earth Moving Equipment Technology
- Virtual Reality Applications in Manufacturing
- Precision Systems (MEMS)
How
can a company join MRC
There are two levels of membership-
1.
Large
company membership (for companies with annual revenues over $100M): $50 K /
year.
2.
Small
company membership (for companies with annual revenues under $100M): $20 K
/ year.
The
membership fees are distributed to various projects based on a well defined
voting procedure among all members. In addition, once a company becomes a
member, it can fund additional research projects specific to only its own
technology interests without seeking a consensus among other members.
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