The Re:Build Origin Story
By Miles Arnone — I’m often asked how Re:Build Manufacturing got its start. Like many businesses’ origin story, it contains personal and professional elements. The personal aspect goes back more than thirty-five years, when Jeff Wilke was growing up in Pittsburgh, which was beginning to decline as an industrial mecca, and I was in high school. We both were concerned about the degradation of the U.S. manufacturing base (yes, this is what I was thinking about as a teenager!), which at that time was struggling to compete with Japan. No one was worried about China as a competitor in the late 1980s or early 1990s. In any case, ultimately those changes led us both, and several other early and current Re:Builders, to apply (and miraculously be accepted) to a graduate program at MIT called, “Leaders for Manufacturing.” The idea of the program was to equip engineering-centric professionals with the management and leadership skills necessary to drive improvements in the U.S. manufacturing ecosystem.
Exro Names Re:Build Manufacturing Its Exclusive Cell Driver™ Manufacturing Partner
Calgary, AB – Exro accelerates its energy storage business, naming Re:Build Manufacturing its exclusive manufacturing partner and establishing new channel partnership agreements. Exro announces US-based Re:Build Manufacturing is its exclusive manufacturing partner for Cell Driver™ Energy Storage, thereby outsourcing product assembly to an industry expert. The partnership with Re:Build Manufacturing provides Exro the ability to quickly scale to capture the significant opportunity in energy storage while removing all future capital expenditure and inventory working capital requirements associated with Cell Driver™ manufacturing from Exro’s balance sheet. Exro also announces new channel sales partnerships with PVCA, ProSolar, Shaw Solar, and High Point Electric, renewable energy and energy management integrators that cover customer networks in California, Colorado, Florida, the Caribbean, and regions within Canada. Cell Driver™ is on track for UL certification in early Q3 2023, to be followed immediately by start-of-series production with in-field pilots and deliveries.
Governor Josh Shapiro and Re:Build Manufacturing Announce $81 Million Investment
Pittsburgh, PA – Today, Governor Josh Shapiro joined leadership from Re:Build Manufacturing (Re:Build), the Regional Industrial Development Corporation (RIDC), and Pennsylvania leaders to announce an $81 million investment to create a major, innovation-focused manufacturing operation in the New Kensington Advanced Manufacturing Park that will create 300 high-quality jobs in Westmoreland County. A leader in bringing high-tech manufacturing jobs back to the U.S., Re:Build’s operations at the new regional headquarters in New Kensington will focus on state-of-the-art fabrication, manufacturing, and integration and assembly projects in high-growth, innovation-driven industries including: energy, life sciences, robotics, electric mobility, satellite communications, and aerospace. The project will create Re:Build’s first ground-up manufacturing facility in the U.S. here in Pennsylvania.
MIT Leaders for Global Operations announces new industry partnership with Re:Build Manufacturing
Cambridge, MA — The MIT Leaders for Global Operations (LGO) program welcomes Re:Build Manufacturing as its newest industry partner. This addition brings LGO’s partner company total to 24—17 of which are in the Fortune 500 or Global Fortune 500. MIT LGO collaborates with the MIT School of Engineering to deliver an interdisciplinary Engineering-MBA dual degree program. The two-year curriculum features internships at elite partner companies. Students develop leadership skills for the pharmaceutical, manufacturing, energy, high-tech, and global supply chain industries, among others. Re:Build Manufacturing integrates new technologies, managerial methods and capital into conventional manufacturing in medium-sized US manufacturing companies across industrial platforms in diversified growth markets with the goal of revitalizing the U.S. manufacturing base in areas that have been deindustrialized over the past 30 years. Re:Build currently employs over 800 people.
Re:Build Manufacturing Announces the Acquisition of AppliedLogix
Framingham, MA – Re:Build Manufacturing is pleased to announce the acquisition of AppliedLogix, of Rochester, New York. This acquisition enables Re:Build to expand our engineering and development capabilities for firmware, software, and electrical engineering applications across a variety of industries. Founded in 2006, AppliedLogix is an engineering consulting firm that provides custom embedded system design expertise across a wide range of applications, including custom power conversion & control systems for alternative energy, high performance imaging systems, AI & machine learning, and automation. AppliedLogix’s core capabilities consist of FPGA programming, SoC development, advanced PCB design and layout, as well as EMC engineering and signal integrity analysis. AppliedLogix’s technical programming expertise and embedded design experience have made them an integral part of their customer’s engineering and design efforts.
Re:Build Manufacturing Announces the Acquisition of Answer Engineering
Framingham, MA – Re:Build Manufacturing is pleased to announce the acquisition of Denver, Colorado based Answer Engineering, significantly expanding Re:Build’s engineering and development capabilities in the aviation and aerospace industries. Founded in 2012, Answer Engineering is an aviation and aerospace engineering consulting firm providing design, development, and analysis services to customers across all major aerospace market segments, including commercial aviation, general aviation, defense, urban air mobility, space exploration, launch and communications systems. Answer has extensive experience in both manned and unmanned aircraft programs and has supported some of the most visible and successful programs in the aerospace industry. Answer offers nearly all disciplines in aerospace engineering including structures, mechanical systems, landing gear systems, aerodynamics, modifications, repairs, and serviceability.
DAPR Day
College candidates being considered for full-time hire joined us at Re:Build DAPR for a fun day filled with team and individual engineering challenges, Volleypong, and excellent food! Candidates left with an understanding of what it is truly like to work at Rebuild: DAPR. Thank you to all that attended and those who helped to make this unique and exciting day possible.
Fikst Day
Our team works hard and plays hard! See what we mean by looking at some photographs from our recent Fikst Day.
Jeff Wilke Podcast Interview
Wilke had been at Amazon for more than 20 years, and had seen it grow from a modest-sized bookseller to a worldwide behemoth. But Wilke believes the American economy — and national security — is dependent on luring manufacturing back to our shores.
Miles Arnone – Good Day, CAMX
CAMX Day 2 kicks off at 8 a.m. in the Anaheim Convention Center Ballroom, Level 3 with “Good Day, CAMX,’ a discussion panel highlighting innovations and collaborative efforts enabling next-generations, aerospace-certified thermoplastic composite structures.