Illinois Manufacturing Excellence Center

Innovation clusters-geographic concentrations of interconnected firms that share supplier networks, workforce skill sets, and other common features and that are served by supporting organizations to promote cluster growth-have emerged as a key strategy for promoting regional economic growth. With Foundation support, a team of economic development analysts in Chicago have identified the food industry-firms that process and package a range of productssas offering growth potential and a means to improve regional economic performance, while realizing positive employment and other outcomes for the area. The Illinois Manufacturing Excellence Center, a nonprofit economic development organization established in 1996 with a mission to catalyze the transformation of manufacturing in Illinois, is now assuming oversight of this project. Funding for this stage of the effort supports the organizing of firms in the cluster and the building of a service delivery capacity to provide market information, specialized workforce training, and streamlined access to supplier networks. The goal of this effort is to promote firm growth, to strengthen entrepreneurship, to enhance productivity, to expand employment, and to positively influence regional economic performance.