DATE: Tuesday, July 22, 1997                TAG: 9707220242

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MEREDITH COHN, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   46 lines

ODU HIRES TWO EXPERTS TO HELP LOCAL MANUFACTURING

The more than 600 manufacturing companies in Hampton Roads have a new resource to call on.

Old Dominion University's Technical Applications Center announced Monday that it recently received federal and state funding targeted at helping small- and medium-sized manufacturing companies stay competitive.

The center used the money to hire two specialists who are available to work full time with Hampton Roads' manufacturers.

Businesses already could go to the university's center or to Virginia's Center for Innovative Technology, a state-funded agency. But the new funding will allow staff members to pay more attention to manufacturers, which provide more than 100,000 jobs statewide.

``We've been around in one form or another since 1986 as part of the College of Engineering and Technology, and we've been sort of a liaison office between industry and the college's faculty,'' said Clair Dorsey, the center's director. ``But now we have dedicated staff for manufacturing.''

The two new staffers work out of the Virginia Center for Innovative Technology offices on the Peninsula and in South Hampton Roads. Both have industry backgrounds, Dorsey said.

For a fee of $50 an hour, they will work with companies - for example, to streamline processes or develop new ones. They can conduct efficiency and quality evaluations. And, they can call on the university's faculty or outside consultants.

The money for the new program comes from the university, the Center for Innovative Technology and the National Institute for Standards and Technology. Programs such as the university's Technical Application Center will also go on-line in the western part of the state, Richmond and Northern Virginia.

The university's center reports its staff has already worked on 168 projects with Virginia's industry, resulting in 957 newly created or preserved jobs and $239 million in new revenues.

Some of those projects include helping Aerialscope, a Richmond-based fire truck manufacturer, redesign its 75-foot truck to meet National Fire Protection Agency standards; supplying engineering assistance to AMADAS, a Suffolk-based agricultural machinery manufacturer, in creating the first self-propelled peanut combine, and helping American Technologies Industries Ltd., a Chesapeake-based laser-printer roller maker, evaluate part of its manufacturing process.

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