RICHMOND, VA– The Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing (CCAM) today announced it will add three additional companies to its growing list of industry members: Buehler, Cool Clean Technologies and GF AgieCharmilles. Each company brings key advanced manufacturing equipment to CCAM that will support the center’s research and development efforts.

CCAM is a collaborative research center that brings global manufacturing companies together with Virginia’s top research universities and CCAM’s own expert engineers and scientists. Working together under one roof on challenges common to advanced manufacturing, CCAM accelerates the transfer of research discovery and innovation to commercial, production-line use.

• Headquartered in Lake Bluff, Ill., Buehler is the world’s leading supplier of materials preparation and analysis equipment, consumable supplies and application solutions for manufacturers. The company is outfitting CCAM’s materials preparation lab with key equipment to support research projects and to build relationships with CCAM’s other industry members.

• Cool Clean Technologies uses recycled CO₂to provide precision cleaning, machine cooling and materials extraction solutions to manufacturers worldwide. The Minneapolis-based company’s solutions are used across a wide range of industries, including medical, fiber optics, fuels, aviation, solar, electronics and other manufacturing sectors, and they will play key roles in CCAM research projects.

• GF AgieCharmilles, a Switzerland-based company operating in more than 50 countries, provides machines, automation solutions and services to the tool and mold making industry and to manufacturers of precision components. Its products range from electric discharge machines, high-performance milling machines and 3D laser surface texturing machines to services, spare parts and automation solutions. GF AgieCharmilles is providing a die-sinking EDM unit for CCAM’s machining cell.

“On September 11^th, CCAM took possession of its state-of-the-art research facility,” says David R. Lohr, president and executive director of CCAM. “Buehler, Cool Clean Technologies and GF AgieCharmilles will play a critical role in providing the equipment that will allow our industry and university members to leverage this new research center to turn research into business advantages and we look forward to a lasting and beneficial relationship.”

Existing CCAM industry members include Aerojet, Canon Virginia, Chromalloy, Mitutoyo America Corporation, Newport News Shipbuilding, Rolls-Royce, Sandvik Coromant, Siemens and Sulzer Metco. University members include the University of Virginia, Virginia State University and Virginia Tech.

CCAM recently completed construction of its new, state-of-the-art, 60,000 square-foot facility in Prince George County, VA., just south of Richmond. The building features computational and engineering research labs in addition to high bay production space for commercial scale equipment and other tools required to explore CCAM’s research focus areas – surface engineering and manufacturing systems.