INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Ivy Tech Community College in Indianapolis is ready to unveil its newest teaching tool, in collaboration with Lilly.

Officials with the school and company celebrated a ribbon-cutting for the Manufacturing Innovation Training Center at 16 Tech on Wednesday morning.

They hope to give students hands-on experience with smart manufacturing.

Jeremiah Dunn, Ivy Tech’s smart manufacturing and digital integration program chair, explains how smart manufacturing uses the cloud. “We have robots and computerized machinery doing automated assembly, transportation and management of materials. (It) means all of your manufacturing operations are integrated with the Internet of Things.”

A $15 million investment from Lilly helped get the program off the ground. The Lilly Scholars at Ivy Tech program will cover tuition for 1,000 students pursuing education in a handful of related fields, every year through 2028.

Dedric Day, senior director of strategic talent partnerships at Lilly, says the students will also have access to other resources through the company. “There will be the opportunity for apprenticeships as well as exposure to Lilly manufacturing leadership. They also get me. Hopefully [I] will help them be hired into Lilly in the future.”

Dunn says the students have been working in the Manufacturing Innovation Training Center since mid-October. “The students really know that they’re getting quality hands-on training here. That (it) will give them the skills that they need to go work.”

The goal is to give students a direct line to work at companies after graduation.

Day says these kinds of investments benefit the community, which in turn benefits them. “We’re building a talent ecosystem so that we can actually provide these training opportunities for the students where they live. (Also,) we have this in direct proximity to our manufacturing plans to allow for upskilling and reskilling of our Lilly employees. It’s a pretty awesome setup.”

Students working in the center are completing coursework in biopharmaceutical manufacturing, biotechnology and other manufacturing programs.