Schoolcraft College has renovated a building to be used for its plastics and other manufacturing programs.
The 48,000-square-foot building is located near the school's main campus in Livonia, Mich. The square footage is more than double the space the programs previously had, school officials said in a statement.
The school's manufacturing programs, including for plastics, "are a great fit for local companies involved in manufacturing, especially in the plastics industry," they added.
Schoolcraft offers 16-credit and 33-credit certificates and an associate degree in plastic technology. The same program structure exists for CAD students, advanced metal finishing (computer numerical control), electronics/mechatronics, robotics, occupational safety and welding.
With the new building, Schoolcraft's plastic technology program now has capacity in its processing lab to expand to include equipment other than injection molding and thermoforming. Future plans include extrusion and blow molding classes.
The testing lab already includes a universal tester/tensile machine, drop impact testing, a melt flow index unit and ageing oven. It now has the capacity to include an Izod/Charpy impact tester and two lab hoods for both chemical exposure and flame testing.
The facility now can serve 300-400 students per day and offers dual enrollment, which allows students to take college courses while in high school at no cost, as well as apprenticeship training that can be developed to meet the company needs and workforce development. These programs include "boot camps" in CNC machining, welding and robotics.
Schoolcraft "is embracing the concept of providing transformational learning experiences … and is determined to meet the needs of the surrounding community," officials said. The manufacturing expansion "is one way that Schoolcraft College is investing resources to meet labor demand for engineering technology professionals," they added.
Schoolcraft was founded in 1961 and has 36,000 students in more than 130 part-time and full-time academic programs.