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This local advanced manufacturing training center now running in full gear

This CAM can’t toss a football and certainly doesn’t have a line of clothes at Belk.
This CAM is the Gaston College Center for Advanced Manufacturing and it's up and running adjacent to the Dallas campus of the college.

Earlier this month, CAM began training students in robotics, industrial systems, computer-aided design, instrumentation and mechatronics.

Virgil Cox, dean of engineering and industrial technologies at Gaston College, says industry on the western side of the Charlotte region needs employees for technical jobs.

“To educate students for occupations in the engineering, energy, and manufacturing industries within our region, we needed a lab that would bring all the specialized functions together,” he says.
The 22,100-square-foot building is in Gastonia Technology Park, but it's within a stone’s throw from the Dallas campus of Gaston College. The $8 million center was financed by a range of public and private funding.

Contributors included the Golden LEAF Foundation, foundations linked to industries in Gaston and Lincoln counties, the state and the U.S. Economic Development Administration.
For example, the robotics lab is supported by Parkdale Mills Inc., the Gastonia yarns manufacturer. There students can learn to program industrial robots and how to debug and troubleshoot problems.
CAM was operated on a limited basis over the summer but became fully functional when students started the fall 2017 term earlier this month.
Local manufacturers also had input into the curricula and equipment for the center. The industrial systems technology lab, which is sponsored by Timken Foundation of Canton, Ohio, trains students on pumps and motors as well as gear and bearing assemblies. Those are used in advanced manufacturing environments.

The mechatronics lab has a conveyor belt system that’s used to train students on automated manufacturing systems. As a part of the instructional process, the instructor can introduce faults into the system so students can diagnose the problems and fix them.





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