The Charlotte-Mecklenburg public school system in North Carolina recently dedicated the new $200,000 Bosch Rexroth Advanced Manufacturing and Technology Center at the Olympic Community of Schools in Southwest Charlotte. The opening of the new Center took place on the first day of NC Advanced Manufacturing and STEM Career Awareness Week.

The new 2839 sq.ft. center was initiated by a founding grant of $80,000 by Bosch Rexroth Corporation and the Bosch Community Fund, with additional time and resources supplied by Bosch Rexroth, the Olympic Foundation, CMS and other leading advanced manufacturing firms in the Greater Charlotte area.

The new facility will support a new Advanced Manufacturing Hub at the Olympic Community of Schools and provide OHS students with hands-on experience using state-of-the-art manufacturing technologies. The new Center includes the latest in metal-cutting and finishing technology, with multiple lathes, milling machines, saws and grinders, along with metrology and quality-control stations. 

The Bosch Rexroth Advanced Manufacturing and Technology Center represents the collaborative efforts of industry leaders, public school officials and teachers to create opportunities in STEM-oriented careers in the greater Charlotte region, and to build a local supply of highly-skilled employees for technical positions. 

According to Bosch Rexroth’s Erwin Wieckowski, Executive Vice President, Factory Automation, the new Center is part of a strategy to get young people excited about opportunities in manufacturing. Says Wieckowski, “Filling key technical positions in our factory here in Charlotte has never been harder. Our investment in the new Advanced Manufacturing and Technology Center will help us to build the technically-skilled workforce that we need locally. That’s something that all of us in the manufacturing community can rally around.”

The Bosch Rexroth Advanced Manufacturing and Technology Center will be available for OCS students beginning with the 2015-16 school year.