On Monday, the Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing (CCAM) celebrated the grand opening of its 62,000-square-foot facility during a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by Governor McDonnell. The facility is located adjacent to the 1,000-acre Rolls-Royce Crosspointe Campus in Prince George County, Va.

CCAM brings together Virginia’s leading manufacturing companies and top educational institutions in order to expedite research and turn ideas into real-world technologies and solutions. The research center focuses on two areas—surface engineering and manufacturing systems. 

The facility received its full certificate of occupancy in September 2012 and has grown to include 15 manufacturing companies—Canon Virginia Inc., Chromalloy, Newport News Shipbuilding, Rolls-Royce, Sandvik Coromant, Siemens, Sulzer Metco, Aerojet, Hermle Machine Company, Mitutoyo, TurboCombustor Technology Inc., Buehler, Cool Clean Technologies, GF AgieCharmilles, and Blaser Swisslube.

In addition, the three founding universities are Virginia State University, Virginia Tech, and University of Virginia, which collectively have 50 students completing internships at CCAM.

The applied research center includes a 16,000-square-foot high bay area, five machining labs, five computational labs, a 3-D visualization lab, conference rooms, and open and modular workstations. CCAM is currently hiring and expects to have more than 100 employees made up of engineers, scientists and analysts.

According to Governor McDonnell, CCAM is a “one-of-a-kind asset.” The collaborative nature of the facility and its ability to bridge the gap between research and commercialization is expected to advance Virginia as a hub of advanced manufacturing. 

To learn more about CCAM, visit www.ccam-va.com, and to find out more about Virginia’s advanced manufacturing capabilities across the Commonwealth, click here.

Governor McDonnell is joined (left to right) by Dr. Mike Beffel, CCAM Interim President & Executive Director, and Armand Lauzon, CCAM Board Chair, at the CCAM Grand Opening event in Prince George County, Va.

Rolls-Royce recently announced it will begin construction on a second advanced manufacturing facility at its Crosspointe campus in Prince George County, Va., which is expected to bring a $136 million investment and 140 new jobs to the Central Virginia region.

The 90,000-square-foot Advanced Airfoil Machining Facility will be located on Rolls-Royce’s 1,000-acre campus, adjacent to its Rotatives manufacturing facility. Construction is expected to be completed by the end of 2013.

The Advanced Airfoil Machining Facility will produce turbine blades and nozzle guide vanes for advanced aero engines used in the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, Airbus 380 and Airbus 350. Using Rolls-Royce’s advanced machining technology and proprietary high-speed cutting process, the company has the ability to precisely shape specialized materials and efficiently produce durable engine components.

Driven by growth for its aero engines, the company continues to expand its Crosspointe facility, making it the largest and most advanced Rolls-Royce campus in North America. Rolls-Royce’s vision for the Crosspointe campus is to create a hub of advanced manufacturing innovation, with partnerships between leading research universities, government and businesses. 

To date, the Crosspointe campus includes the company’s Rotatives facility, which opened in May 2011 as a center of excellence to manufacture the company’s engine discs. Also at Crosspointe, CCAM opened this fall as an applied research center, joining leading Virginia universities and manufacturing companies to bring real-world solutions to market more quickly.

With ample space and a robust, industrial-grade infrastructure for additional facilities, Rolls-Royce’s Crosspointe Campus is poised to attract suppliers and continue its growth as a leading center for advanced manufacturing.

To learn more about the Rolls-Royce Crosspointe Campus and Virginia’s capabilities in the advanced manufacturing space, click on the highlighted links.

A rendering of Rolls-Royce's Advanced Airfoil Machining Facility at its Crosspointe campus in Prince George County, Va.

It’s not unusual for companies to recognize their customers at milestone celebrations.

It’s not even that atypical to give customers some podium time.

But when the customer is the United States Marine Corps, and they arrive at a Rolls-Royce North America event in a Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey, a multi-mission, military tiltrotor aircraft powered by a Rolls-Royce engine, that’s a bit out of the ordinary.

Not one—but two—40,000-pound V-22s appeared from out of nowhere this morning to usher in construction of Rolls-Royce North America’s first U.S. built-from-the-ground-up manufacturing facility in Prince George County, Virginia. Located on more than 1,000 acres, Crosspointe is the company’s largest site by area in North America, where Rolls-Royce will manufacture, assemble and test a range of aerospace components and products. Initial Rolls-Royce investment is $170 million, with a project total anticipated to be about $500 million. The first phase of work will create about 140 jobs, and Rolls-Royce expects to hire a total of 500 workers before all is said and done. The project was announced in November 2007.

Instead of the typical shovel-piercing-ground ceremony, Rolls-Royce North America CEO Jim Guyette and Virginia Governor Tim Kaine hoisted two flags—one bearing the Rolls-Royce logo and the other symbolizing the Commonwealth of Virginia—with help from none other than the Marines themselves.