Wal-Mart, Foundation Grant $4 Million To Spark Job Innovation

Wal-Mart, the Walmart Foundation and the U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM), awarded $4 million to seven universities to help create processes that facilitate U.S. manufacturing jobs in the areas of tooling for injection molding and textile dying processes.

The Innovation Fund awards were announced at Wal-Mart’s U.S. Manufacturing Jobs Summit in Denver Thursday (Aug. 14). The summit is bringing together manufacturers suppliers, governors and mayors from across 42 states.

“Innovation is part of the heart and soul of Walmart,” said Michelle Gloeckler, Walmart’s executive president of consumables and U.S. manufacturing. “By investing in American ingenuity originating everywhere from the research lab to the assembly line, we can transform our approach to manufacturing to be more cost-effective and efficient. We can bring more jobs and more production back into American communities.”

The grant recipients were selected for their ability to address two key areas that present barriers to increased domestic manufacturing:

• Reducing the cost of textiles manufacturing in the U.S. by addressing obstacles throughout production.
• Improving common manufacturing processes with broad application to many types of consumer products.

The 2014 Walmart U.S. Manufacturing Innovation Fund grant winners are:

• Georgia Tech Research Corporation for innovation of thread-count-based fabric motion control, a critical enabling technology for the automated production of sewn goods.
• Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis (IUPUI) to advance and accelerate the industrial implementation of metal 3-D printing for the manufacturing of plastic injection tooling as an alternative to current metal-shaping practices.
• North Carolina State University College of Textiles to address challenges to manufacturing of furniture cushions in the U.S. by implementing new technologies in both fabric printing and cut-and-sew automation.
• Oregon State University to develop two novel alternative mold fabricating approaches, and evaluate for functionality, precision and cost reduction potential.
• Texas Tech University to support collaborative research on cotton breeding and biotechnology, cotton production, and various aspects of textile manufacturing, dyeing efficiency and specialty finishes.
• University of Texas at Arlington to develop a novel manufacturing system that will autonomously prepare small motor sub-systems and assemble the motor components.
• University of Georgia Research Foundation to develop an innovative approach to fabric dyeing that will greatly reduce, and perhaps eliminate, the need for water in dyeing cotton and cotton/polyester fabrics and yarns.