Michigan Opens New Advanced Manufacturing Center Anchored by 475 3D Printers

A New Hub for Additive Manufacturing in the Midwest

Oakland University and Automation Alley formally opened the Advanced Manufacturing Center of Excellence in Troy, Michigan. The facility becomes the new home of Project DIAMOnD, Automation Alley's distributed additive manufacturing network, which links more than 500 manufacturers and 475 operational industrial 3D printers across the state.

The Center is designed to sit between research and production. Oakland University's School of Engineering and Computer Science provides faculty, students, and lab capability. Automation Alley contributes its network of manufacturing members and its Digital Transformation Center infrastructure. Together, the goal is to move research off the shelf and into factory applications faster than either organization could manage alone.

Project DIAMOnD by the Numbers

Since launching, Project DIAMOnD has produced more than 50,000 parts through its distributed network. The model is straightforward: small and medium-sized manufacturers across Michigan submit jobs, and the nearest available printer on the network fills the order. That approach gives companies access to industrial additive manufacturing without requiring them to buy and maintain their own machines.

The new Center expands that model with dedicated lab space, workforce development programming, and a structured path from prototype to commercial production. Researchers and industry partners will collaborate on Smart Product Recipes: standardized digital manufacturing instructions that allow the same part to be produced consistently across different machines in the network.

Workforce Development as a Core Mission

The Center is not only about machines. A stated priority is giving students hands-on experience with real manufacturing problems. Oakland University undergraduates and graduate students will work alongside industry partners on applied research projects, giving them exposure to additive manufacturing workflows that most academic programs still treat as a specialization rather than a baseline skill.

Dr. Louay Chamra, Dean of Oakland University's School of Engineering and Computer Science, described the location as exactly where the next generation of manufacturing talent should be developed: between the campus and the plant floor. Automation Alley CEO Tom Kelly framed it similarly, saying innovation in advanced manufacturing happens fastest when academia and industry stop working in parallel and start working together.

Why This Matters for the 3D Printing Industry

Distributed manufacturing networks have been talked about extensively in the additive manufacturing sector. Project DIAMOnD is one of the more concrete implementations, with real print volume, real member companies, and now a physical facility to anchor the effort. If the Center can scale metal additive manufacturing and bring Smart Product Recipes to a production-ready stage, it becomes a model other regions will try to replicate.

The broader signal is that Michigan, a state built on traditional manufacturing, is positioning itself as a practical test bed for digital and additive manufacturing at scale. A 475-printer network backed by a major university and an industry organization with 4,000-plus members is not a pilot project. It is a bet that distributed manufacturing will matter to a significant share of the state's industrial base within the next few years.