Industry
SPOTLIGHT
Yankee
ingenuity lives on in Connecticut as CT manufacturers get smarter and
leaner
By
Taryn
Plumb
Manufacturing
by the Numbers
$24
billion -- Total
output of CT manufacturers.
4,700 -- Number
of manufacturing firms in Connecticut.
166,000 --Total
Connecticut manufacturing employees.
Largest
Manufacturers based in CT
General
Electric, Fairfield Pitney Bowes, Stamford Praxiar Corp., Danbury
United Technologies Corp., Hartford Xerox Corp., Norwalk
For
the country’s third smallest state,
Connecticut
has a dense and diverse array of manufacturers, from family- owned
shops to international trans- portation and pop culture giants. And
while
the sector — not just here, but throughout the United States —
has suffered losses due to the economy, off-shoring and the
ever-changing nature of technology, manufacturers in Con- necticut
are optimistic about the future, despite significant challenges still
to overcome.
“We
are gaining a lot of momentum,” said Douglas Johnson, president of
the Smaller Manufacturers Association of Connecticut. “We’re in
kind of a Renaissance of manufacturing.”
So
what exactly is made here in Connecticut?
All
told, the state has roughly 4,700 manufacturers that employ 166,000
people, according to Bonnie Del Conte, president and CEO of the Rocky
Hill-based consulting organization CONNSTEP.
Ultimately,
manufacturing accounts for slightly more than $24 billion — or
roughly between 10 and 12 percent — of Connecti- cut’s gross
domestic product, she said.
The
state’s largest sector by far is transportation equipment —
including jet engines, helicopters and aerospace products
manufactured by Hartford-headquartered aerospace and aviation giant
United Tech- nologies Corp., and the submarines made by General
Dynamics Electric Boat in Groton.
They,
in turn, have created a sector of feeder manufacturers: Admill
Machine of New Britain and Aero Gear Inc. in Windsor, to name a
couple.
“There
are a lot of businesses that fuel this engine, so to speak,” said
Del Conte.
Diversity
The
state fulfills a number of other manu- facturing capacities as well:
paper (Interna- tional Paper in Middletown and Putnam),electric
equipment, machinery, plastics, rubber, furniture, apparel, textiles
and food (Frito-Lay in Killingly; Bigelow Tea in Fairfield).“We do
quite a bit of everything in Con- necticut,” said Del Conte.
Of
course, she acknowledged, the state used to do more. At one point, it
had more than 6,000 manufacturers employing around 200,000 people.
“Nationwide,
manufacturing obviously has been on a decline,” she said. “There
has been job loss and establishment loss.”
But,
she and others agreed, things are improving.
“The
climate for manufacturing in Con- necticut is better,” said Chris
DiPentima, CEO of Pegasus Manufacturing in Middletown, a fabricating
and machining company.
He
attributed that to “concerted efforts” by academia and policy
makers. For example, manufacturing programs have been expanded at
state community colleges and industry advisors sit on the boards to
those colleges; legislation has been introduced for a $25 million
Advanced Manufacturing Fund to provide assistance for the industry,
and the state implemented the Small Business Express Program, which
pro- vides loans and grants to small businesses.
“We
have an administration that is very pro-manufacturing and supports
manufac- turing in many different ways,” said Sue Palisano,
director of education and workforce development at the Connecticut
Center for Advanced Technology Inc. in East Hartford.
Seymour-based
Microboard Processing Inc. knows this first-hand; the 95-employee
company, founded in 1983, received a $100,000 matching grant from the
Small Business Express Program to renovate parts of its facility to
accommodate growth and reduce its carbon footprint, according to
Owner and President Ni- cole Russo. The manufacturer of printed
circuit board assemblies also secured a $300,000 loan from the
program to help cover the cost of what Russo called “the most
advanced inspection equipment available in our electronics sector.”
Like
many others, Microboard initially settled in Connecticut because of
the state’s tal- ent pool, centralized location and supply chain.
She
pointed out “the easy proximity to leading edge aerospace
customers, as well as telecom, med- ical, high speed server and
industrial customers” made the state an ideal location for
Microboard.
DiPentima
of Pegasus also pointed out Connecticut’s advantages in its
experienced workforce, as well as the convenience of having “the
complete supply chain located within a 30-mile radius — from raw
material distributors, to special processes, to manufac- turers and
finishing houses,” as well as United Technologies Corp. and
Electric Boat.
As
he explained, Pegasus has been able to offset the higher costs of
doing business in Connecticut by “making parts faster than our
global competitors because we have an expe- rienced workforce to draw
from and quicker turnaround times from local suppliers.”
Curbing
costs
In
addition to offering an experienced workforce, Connecticut also
offers programs to help manufacturers lower costs in what
traditionally is a high-cost area: energy.
Energize
Connecticut, a state program run in partnership with the state’s
utilities — includ- ing Connecticut Light & Power as well as
United Illuminating — offers a broad array of options to help
businesses get control of their energy costs. One of the more popular
programs is called PRIME (Process Reengineering for Increased
Manufacturing Efficiency).
The program takes businesses through the process of getting “lean,”
or more efficient. Lean techniques emphasize a system where customer
orders pull activity, rather than a business pushing product that’s
already been made and sitting in a warehouse.
The
family-owned Edco Engineering of Newington began participating in the
PRIME program this spring through the help of the In- stitute of
Technology & Business Development (ITBD) at Central Connecticut
State University. Edco, which makes components used in fluid transfer
for engine and airplane makers, is using the lean training to help
expand its assembly and tube-bending division. The training is inten-
sive. It included having a lean expert on site for nine days who
reviewed Edco’s manufacturing process and then made very specific
recommendations on ways to save time —
and
therefore —
energy.
The cost for the training was more than $15,000, a majority of which
will be covered through the PRIME program.
The
lean training “is going to make us more competitive in a global
economy,” said James Boryczewski, vice president of Edco. His
sister, Dina Palmese, also a vice president at the firm, added, “In
the end, what we’re hoping to do is improve product flow, minimize
our environ- mental impact and reduce the amount of energy we use.”
Local
roots
Like
Edco, many of the state’s small manufac- turers are
multi-generational and family-owned, meaning they’re deeply
invested in Connecticut.
Johnson
of the Smaller Manufacturer Association — whose membership includes
138 companies — works at the third-gener- ation Marion
Manufacturing Co., located in Cheshire since 1946.
“There’s
a strong desire to stay here,” he said. “Connecticut’s a great
place to live.”
This
is where the Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology’s
“Connecticut. Dream It. Do It.” program is working to make a
difference.
A
coalition of manufacturers, associa- tions, educational institutions,
economic development and workforce organizations, it was launched in
December 2010 to address workforce shortages.
Since
then, it’s reached out to 14,000 mid- dle and high school students
through special events and various programming, according to
Palisano. They get hands-on experience that replicates the
manufacturing process — from concept, to design, to fabrication, to
quality control — and they meet with manufacturers and their
employees.
The
organization’s biggest challenge: Replacing “the tarnished image
of manu- facturing as dirty, dark and dangerous,” said Karen
Jarmon, senior communications advi- sor for the Connecticut Center
for Advanced Technology.
“Misinformation
is one of our key chal- lenges,” Palisano agreed. “It’s
changing the image of manufacturing and challenging stereotypes.”
As
she pointed out, jobs are well-paid, more secure than perceived, and
cover a huge breadth.
“There
are a wide variety of kinds of careers that you could have,” she
said.
DiPentima
agreed that roles range from “operators, to sales, to human
resources, to finance, to quality control, to logistics, and much
more. No other industry offers such a diverse range of job
opportunities.”
PROFILE
Chip
Bottone
CEO,
FuelCell Energy
By
Taryn Plumb
Back
in college, Chip Bottone worked at a coal-fired power plant –
tending to precipitators (which re-
move
dust from gas), and dealing with the inevitable
hitches
and quirks of steam valves and boiler pumps. Thirty
years later, he’s on the opposite end of the
energy
spectrum: He heads the clean power company Fu- elCell Energy, which
conceptualizes, manufactures, installs, manages and services fuel
cell power plants.
“The
value of that, frankly, is that I understand both sides of the
equation,” said Bottone, who has served as presi- dent and CEO of
FuelCell Energy since February 2011.
Distributed
plan
The
publicly-traded company — with roughly $188 million in revenue —
is headquartered in Danbury in northern Fairfield County and has
manufacturing op- erations in Torrington. Its Direct FuelCell plants
have generated more than 1.5 billion kilowatt hours of electricity
without burning or combustion, utilizing such fuels as renewable
biogas, propane and clean natural gas.
“What
we’re trying to do is build power plants around the world, megawatt
size and above, and help transform the utility industry from a
centralized form of power to more of a distributed form of power, and
make sure that affordable, clean energy adds to the resiliency of the
grid,” said Bottone.
He’s
long had an interest in the energy industry, going back to his time
at the coal-fired plant in Cartersville, Ga., where he landed through
a co-op program in college.
“It
was a great correlation between work and school,” said Bottone.
“They were teaching us all this stuff in the classroom, and it was
a great way to see it in action.”
After
earning his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from the
Geor- gia Institute of Technology, Bottone went on to a robust,
25-year career at Ingersoll Rand. Throughout his diversified tenure
there, he was involved in sales and acquisitions, innova- tion,
global business development, commercialization of technology, and
power generation project development. Eventually, he became president
of the manufacturer’s Energy Systems business, which further piqued
his interest in the industry.
“I
wanted to get into the energy sector, specifically clean energy,”
he said, noting his particular interest in the great potential of
fuel cells.
In
February 2010, he joined FuelCell Energy as senior vice president and
chief commer- cial officer; just a year later, he was promoted to his
current position. The company, which was founded in 1969 as Energy
Research Corp., now employs roughly 620 people between its two
Connecticut locations, Bottone said, and more than 95 percent of its
revenues are derived from out of state.
“It’s
good for Connecticut, and, frankly, Connecticut has been good for
us,” he said.
Goals
moving forward are to address the broader energy markets, he said,
and to build larger and larger plants around the world. He noted that
patience is a virtue when working with well-entrenched utility
companies; utilities often tend to be slow to change, because they’re
risk adverse.
“We’re
making progress,” Bottone said. But “we’ve got a lot more work
to do.”
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