 |
 |
 |
|
Consultant helps manufacturing plants improve efficiency
Date: 6/5/2006
by Paul Lundgren
Reducing operating costs and getting products to the market faster is a constant goal for a manufacturer. But making necessary equipment upgrades to streamline operations comes with its own set of challenges.
Beyond new equipment costs is the temporary loss of productivity during the “out with the old, in with the new” phase. Parts of the plant may need to temporarily shut down. Employees need to be retrained. New safety measures are necessary.
Rockwell Automation opened a consulting unit in the Duluth Airpark in early 2005 to help ease their transitions as manufacturers in the region upgrade power, control and information systems.
“We’re kind of a group within Rockwell Automation that functions independently from the manufacturing sector,” said Rodney A. VanBaalen, program manager of the Duluth branch. “It’s been pretty successful for us.”
The Milwaukee-based global industrial plant services corporation supplies products supporting automation of industrial and commercial operations. Rockwell Automation employs about 21,000, has annual sales north of $5 billion, and customers in more than 80 nations. It operated as Rockwell International Corp. until its name change five years ago.
The company opened a manufacturing plant in Ladysmith in 1989 with 16 part-time workers. It has since grown to become the No. 4 employer in Rusk County according to a 2004 study by the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development. That plant employs 225 and generated $191 million in revenues in 2005.
The Duluth unit has 11 employees at its office at 4411 Venture Ave. VanBaalen would not disclose Rockwell’s regional clients, citing confidentiality agreements. He said the Duluth unit generally works on around 15 to 20 projects at any given time, focusing on Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. He said revenue from a typical project is around $50,000 to $75,000.
“This is a bit of a pilot program for Rockwell,” he said. “I’m not terribly sure how much it’s going to grow in Duluth, but I think it can. There’s no reason we can’t do work in Illinois, California ... wherever. My hope is that it does branch out to a national level. And I think it can.”
VanBaalen is a Hibbing native. He began his career as an electrical engineer working on power system designs for Westinghouse Electric Co. in Richland, WA. Then he spent eight years with the engineering group at Potlatch in Cloquet, sold in 2002 to Sappi, the world’s largest producer of coated fine paper and cellulose.
VanBaalen left Potlatch to start a consulting group for Eaton Corp. It had acquired Westinghouse’s electric power distribution and control business unit in 1994, tripling the size of its Cutler-Hammer industrial control and power distribution business.
VanBaalen and other members of that consulting group later became part of the core of Rockwell Automation’s Duluth operation.
“Rockwell Automation has been a phenomenal corporation to work for,” VanBaalen said. “They understand investing today for tomorrow’s results.”
Rockwell Automation’s Duluth staff also includes Mary Kay Byers, office assistant; Brian Hansen, drafter/designer; Calvin Paul, senior designer; Kip Kennedy, senior consulting power systems engineer; Tony Ellis, design engineer; Nate Holden, senior controls engineer; Trinity Sovari, electrical engineer; David Douglas, control technician; Richard Desmond, control technician; and Carlos Mcdonald, controls engineer.
Rockwell Automation is named for Willard Rockwell, an engineer who created Wisconsin Parts Co. in Oshkosh in 1919, producing worm drives and double-reduction axles. But the company’s roots go back to the 1880 incorporation of Dodge Manufacturing Co., a producer of wood hardware specialties. Reliance Electric bought Dodge in 1967 and Rockwell Automation bought Reliance in 1995.
Through numerous mergers and acquisitions, Rockwell Automation has been connected to companies that developed the first two-sided press, introduced the first modem, designed and built the third stage of the Minuteman Intercontinental ballistic missile and the inertial guidance system that provided for its navigation, built the Apollo spacecraft and the rocket engines that launched it toward the moon, and created the equipment that broadcast TV pictures of the first moon walk. The company has sold most of its defense and all of its space business.
