RPI celebrates new advanced manufacturing center

TROY, N.Y. (NEWS10) – Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute launched a center for advanced manufacturing. Experts said it’s coming at a critical moment as the industry is at an inflection point and needs more places at the intersection of manufacturing, robotics, and AI development.

Places like RPI’s new Center for Smart Convergent Manufacturing Systems. On Thursday, RPI officials, industry leaders and representatives from the state celebrated the school’s new center with a ribbon cutting.

However, the center has been in operation since July, as student researcher Amarr Barbee demonstrated for us. He’s enrolled in the co-terminal program, currently pursuing his masters in mechanical engineering, focused on manufacturing.

Center for Smart Convergent Manufacturing Systems Director Johnson Samuel said it’s a game changer.

“We are helping U.S. based companies implement intelligent production systems as part of their workflow,” said Samuel. “So the barrier of entry of things like robotics, things like artificial intelligence has come down quite a bit.”

It’s a state designated Center for Advanced Technology, which is overseen by NYSTAR, under Empire State Development, as Executive Director Ben Verschueren explains.

“NYSTAR oversees a statewide network of over 30 university based technology centers. So this is the newest entry to that family, as well as manufacturing extension partnership, incubators, hotspots. Basically, we’re building an innovation foundation for the state,” said Verschueren.

Samuel said it’s inevitable, when I asked if jobs will be lost to AI.

“Yes. There are going to be certain jobs that are going to go. There’s no.. And I think if you look at it from the positive side, if you talk to any manufacturer today, the issue is not the loss of job, it is they can’t find people. So we are in this interesting gap where the jobs are there, but we are not finding people in those jobs. So how do we continue to add value? Right? So that is an entry point for high tech automation,” said Samuel.

Samuel said leading the center is a privilege and a great responsibility. He said it will take upskilling the current workforce and a new generation of skilled workers.

“People like Amarr are the promise that, you know, they are the ones who are going to keep us at the forefront of technology,” said Samuel, who has mentored Barbee since. 

“It’s not about taking a process that’s done by hand and then doing it by a robot. It’s by empowering that person, right, to educate them, to be higher skilled or to be able to run a robot and then be ten times more productive,” said Barbee, who added it takes an inquisitive and a deep curiosity and love for problem solving.

Samuel said he was impressed when Barbee shared stories about his entrepreneurial spirit in high school, ambitious enough to build his own machines. 

“You get somebody like that who is naturally inclined to manufacturing, who is thinking in terms of future companies that he could start. I mean, they are the future. And I think the best privilege I have is to catch them when they are in their early years and invest in them for the time that I have with them and see them do fantastically well when they graduate,” said Samuel.

Barbee shared these last words of advice for scholars looking at this career path, “stay curious.”