Centers of Excellence

A Center of Excellence (CoE) is an entity that focuses on a specific technology area and conducts both basic and applied research and development. The goal is to inspire and nourish ideas that have commercial benefit for an entire industry within the state. The funding and support provided by Ben Franklin is instrumental in making these centers a reality.

BFTP/CNP is fortunate to have a world-class system of higher education in our 32-county region. The assets these colleges and universities bring to the region in areas such as technology-transfer opportunities, research and development, and faculty consulting are critical to the economic health of the region. Currently, we support the following Centers of Excellence:

Structural Health Monitoring Center of Excellence
The Structural Health Monitoring Center of Excellence will improve public safety by advancing the state-of-the-art in structural health monitoring and providing engineering technology for small and moderate sized Pennsylvania companies doing business in this, and related fields. The Center’s objectives are to spur the research and development of new technologies that will improve public safety; transfer technology to Pennsylvania companies to give them a competitive advantage; make Pennsylvania a “hotspot” for structural health monitoring, creating a new high tech job market that will provide jobs.

Thermoforming Center of Excellence
This Center of Excellence project, which is co-funded with Ben Franklin Northeast, will help establish the Thermoforming Center of Excellence within the Pennsylvania College of Technology’s Plastics Manufacturing Center (PMC) and be dedicated to research, development, technical support, and education within the thermoforming industry.  The Center assists established and early-stage companies with organized support and leadership in several areas critical to their success such as access to: technical expertise, processing and testing equipment, educational and training initiatives, and cost-effective, project-based technical approaches and solutions.

The demand for large parts with thick walls, sometimes constructed of multiple polymer layers, along with the need for quick turn-around time, lower tooling cost, and low pressure processing are conspiring to make thermoforming increasingly attractive as a conversion process in comparison to injection molding.  Thus, the thermoforming industry is poised for growth in terms of new materials, innovative processing, higher conversion volumes and thus, increased opportunity for employment. 

Pennsylvania Recycling Markets Center of Excellence
The Pennsylvania Recycling Markets Center is a state initiative to improve the usage and reusage of recyclables in Pennsylvania and to expand and develop more secure and robust markets for recovered (recycled) materials by helping to overcome market barriers and inefficiencies. The primarily “supply-side” efforts by the Commonwealth have been crucial in achieving the current statewide waste reduction and recycling levels. In order for the Commonwealth to maintain or surpass current recycling levels, however, the base of businesses that use secondary materials must be sustained and, for some materials, expanded to ensure that there are sufficient buyers.