Retail conglomerate Walmart has presented Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) with a $291,202 grant from their U.S Manufacturing Innovation Fund. The grant will fund IUPUI's research project for polymer manufacturing. The aim of the initiative is to boost high level manufacturing in the United States by stimulating its academic research

Kathleen McLaughling, President of the Walmart Foundation, conveyed her organization's excitement and expectations regarding their choice to give this generous grant to IUPUI.

"Researchers at many of America's best universities are hard at work on tough manufacturing challenges, we are excited to support the development of innovative solutions, which we hope will unlock new opportunity for manufacturing in this country." she said

The IUPUI project has been dubbed as the "Optimal Plastic Injection Molding Tooling Design and Production through Advanced Additive Manufacturing." Research will be conducted over the next two years before being concluded in 2016. By the time of its conclusion, the university believes its findings will be able to further catalyze highly skilled manufacturing within the Hoosier state.

David J. Russomanno, dean, Purdue School of Engineering and Technology at IUPUI, spoke to the impact of his university's research.

"We have world-class faculty in the area of advanced manufacturing. Their expertise will be applied to overcome some of the impediments to growing consumer goods manufacturing in Indiana and across the entire United States." he said.

The project conveys Indiana's standing at the forefront of domestic manufacturing. By stimulating further academic research and innovation, the university is contributing to the sustained success of the state's manufacturing sector.

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