Karen Fletcher speaks at Manufacturing USA White House Event

Karen Fletcher, CEO of AIChE's RAPID Institute, which focuses on modular chemical process intensification, spoke yesterday at the Manufacturing USA Stakeholder Event at the White House.

Karen, along with AIChE Executive Director June Wispelwey and other RAPID leaders, were invited to attend the event that highlighted new Manufacturing USA institutes announced by federal agencies. Manufacturing USA announced its first institute in 2012 and has since grown to a network of manufacturing innovation institutes located across the country. Thus far, in addition to the federal investments of more $700 million, Manufacturing USA institutes have attracted more than $1.4 billion in non-federal investment for collaborative research and development to bring advanced manufacturing from the lab to production.

Two weeks ago the Department of Energy (DOE) announced RAPID as its tenth member of the Manufacturing USA Institutes. The Rapid Advancement in Process Intensification Deployment (RAPID) Manufacturing Institute will work to reduce energy usage and feedstock waste, and improve manufacturing productivity by integrating unit processes into single modular hardware elements that are cost effective, highly efficient and scalable.

In the video panel above, you can watch the full White House event. If you'd like to skip ahead to Karen Fletcher's presentation, it begins at 2:04:54 with Lynn Orr, the DOE's undersecretary for science and energy, introducing her. You can learn more about process intensification in a video interview recorded at our recent Annual Meeting here. You can also visit RAPID's website for more information and updates.