New SUNY Poly labs will train advanced manufacturing and semiconductor workforce

MARCY, N.Y. — With a $44 million state investment, SUNY Polytechnic Institute is designing a new robotics and advanced manufacturing research and education lab and a semiconductor-processing lab to train the future workforce for companies like Wolfspeed, Indium, Danfoss, and Micron.

The word manufacturing evokes images of a dirty factory where jobs were manual, but manufacturing today is miles away from that, says SUNY Poly President Winston Soboyejo.

“In advanced manufacturing, it’s a new vision,” he tells CNYBJ. With clean environments and digital and cutting-edge technology including robotics, this fourth manufacturing revolution, dubbed Industry 4.0, reinvents manufacturing for young people and recreates the capacity to make products in America, he adds.

The semiconductor lab will provide education focused on STEM and semiconductor manufacturing, research, and development.

The advanced manufacturing lab — which will include advanced robotics, sensors and controls, smart manufacturing, Industry 4.0 initiatives, and an integrated connection with SUNY Poly’s AI for All facility — will give students the skills they need, notes Michael Carpenter, interim dean of SUNY Poly’s College of Engineering.

“We’re going to be setting up essentially a mock manufacturing line,” he says. It will mimic a real industrial line, even allowing students to troubleshoot and correct failures.

“It’s going to be very cross disciplinary,” Carpenter notes. In a work setting, different disciplines don’t work independently, he explains, but together as a team due to the complex nature of advanced manufacturing. “It’s not just someone turning a wrench to build something.” Workers must analyze data and ensure things are working correctly.

SUNY Poly is already outfitting the initial parts of the lab, Carpenter says. “We will have training up and running as early as this spring into fall.” He hopes the lab will get the larger tool sets it needs by early 2025.

“It’s going to be a really unique opportunity for the students,” he says. They will learn through hands-on projects and challenges. 

The lab will serve students pursuing bachelor’s degrees as well as nontraditional students and will even offer certifications and micro credentials to professionals. “I think we’re going to be a very unique asset in Central New York to be sure,” Carpenter says.

For a public or private college, having such a lab is a significant opportunity. “We feel very lucky,” Soboyejo says. “We hope to really leverage these resources to entice students of all types to consider a career in advanced manufacturing.” 

He’s working to organize partnerships, events, and activities to bring students to campus to expose them to advanced manufacturing, foster interest in careers, and help build the future workforce pipeline.

SUNY Poly recently hosted 100 young women in grades 10-12 at Utica’s Proctor High School as part of the inaugural Women in Manufacturing Summit, put on by the Manufacturers Association of Central New York (MACNY) and Utica City School District. Soboyejo hopes for more events like that to interest more students in STEM careers.

The jobs are out there now, with more to come, Soboyejo says. He’s heard that Micron alone will need 100,000 qualified employees for the four chip fabs it plans to build in upstate New York over the next 20 years.

“We’ll really take a regional approach,” he says, which means working with educational institutions from K-12 schools to universities.

“Industry is here,” he says, “ and they have real needs that are growing.”

That state’s $44 million investment in SUNY Poly, which also includes expanding the university’s health-science wing and updating its nursing laboratories, comes from the SUNY capital construction funds, the state budget, and appropriations secured by Assemblywoman Marianne Buttenschon (D–Marcy).