Robert C. Byrd Institute for Advanced Flexible Manufacturing Systems
Research and Economic Development Center
Marshall University
David M. Porreca, Director
Greg Shrewsberry, Marketing Director
Susan Hahn, 304-696-6273
1050 Fourth Avenue
Huntington, W. Va. 25755
(304) 696-6275
(304) 696-6277 fax

America faces hard but simple choices in the world economy of the 21st Century, says Byrd Institute Director Dave Porreca, citing the arguments of the best-selling economist and author Lester Thurow: "If our work force has only low skills, we will compete with all the other countries that have low skills to offer, and we can only win if we are the cheapest producers of low-skill products."

The alternative? A trained work force that's trained and able to compete in a high-technology economy, using "flexible manufacturing" techniques that take advantage of computer and robotics technology to respond instantly to changing needs.

That's what the Byrd Institute is all about. Similar in some ways to Detroit's model program, Focus: HOPE, the institute's centerpiece is a small but well-equipped "teaching factory," where small and medium-size West Virginia businesses can come to try out high-tech, computerized manufacturing equipment and have their employees trained to use it. This is critical for smaller companies, as most West Virginia firms are, because there's a direct link between a firm's ability to upgrade technology and its efficiency and productivity. The institute makes it practical for small companies to try technologies, like the $350,000 Cincinnati Milacron T-10 computerized milling machine, that only major corporations otherwise could afford.

Financed by military grants, initially a $2.9 million grant from the Air Force three years ago, and a $4 million current award from the Defense Department, the institute is on the leading edge of a hot new development that President Bill Clinton has vowed to see replicated. Clinton wants to develop 170 similar programs across the U.S. (apparently choosing that number because Japan has 170, Porreca says), and the Defense Reinvestment Program has more than $471 million set aside to finance them.

The Byrd Institute, named in honor of the senator who helped establish it, operates in a two-story former bank building in downtown Huntington. It operates several programs, all of them aimed at helping the state's small and medium-size businesses remain competitive by mastering technology. It currently deals primarily through businesses and trains their employees, although Porreca says he would like to establish an apprenticeship-type program soon for unemployed high-school students and graduates.

Among highlights, the two highest-profile activities are: