Ohio Manufacturing Institute

The mission of the Ohio Manufacturing Institute (OMI) at The Ohio State University College of Engineering is to serve as an action-oriented public policy and advocacy center for manufacturing within the state and nation, reflecting a thoughtful and sustained response to industry-led and vetted issues. STRATEGY TO SOLUTIONS OMI works with its industry, university, and government partners to find solutions to manufacturers’ greatest technical and workforce challenges. OMI develops industry-vetted policy recommendations to help the state and nation establish a best-practice competitive ecosystem for small- and mid-sized manufacturing enterprises (SMMEs). FACILITATOR OMI also engages as a regional facilitator that supports manufacturers—especially small to medium-size firms within the supply chain—by aligning industries, academic institutions, technology support organizations and government toward common technical and workforce solutions. STUDENT SOLUTIONS The increasingly digitized and integrated plant floor has enabled greater productivity, better connectivity, and integration of workforce development and educational programs. However, revamped policies to speed curricula and programmatic changes based on industry needs will allow the manufacturing workforce needed to compete and thrive. Working with company leaders, university administrators and higher education partners, OMI has helped develop a new Bachelor of Science in Engineering Technology degree program at the regional campuses to meet these needs. STATEWIDE ROADMAPPING We have constructed roadmaps to determine industry needs by manufacturing processes, outlined a detailed decision analysis to evaluate existing entities on their ability to meet manufacturers’ innovation needs, and mapped a statewide advanced manufacturing technical network structure to increase access to resources and remove barriers between manufacturers and supporting organizations.