Rise of The MakerSpace

One interesting and almost counter-intuitive development out of the internet tech world has been a renewed interest in "maker-culture" from younger generations. Maker-culture, which has risen the past decade out of the context of online tech communities sharing key 21st century skills such as code, has come full-circle and manifested itself in real-world outreach communities in the form of shared workrooms called "Makerspaces".

Makerspaces are studio areas that provide tools and tech for different people to create unrelated projects. Usually those projects range from engineering to software, combining elements of lab, shop, chat room, and garage. The collaborative, hybrid nature of makerspaces lend themselves as ideal for programs that supplement education, as well as exposing prospective students to the world of manufacturing and its benefits as a career choice.

The concept has clearly generated interest throughout smaller communities in America. One such community in Nebraska has entered a unique public-private partnership around makerspaces in an effort to make the idea available to enthusiasts of all ages.

Together with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln-affiliated Nebraska Innovation Campus , the Cooper Foundation has provided a $200,000 grant to help facilitate the Nebraska Innovation Studio, a 16,000 foot makerspace studio designed to provide hands-on experience in all fields of manufacturing not merely for UNL students, but other vocational students in the Lincoln area as well:

"Maker spaces are a growing trend, but Nebraska Innovation Studio will be unique. No other maker space features an in-house business accelerator and the close proximity of tenant companies and research labs on Nebraska Innovation Campus.

Once complete, everyone who enters the studio will be greeted by a gallery that celebrates the creative items being made within the space. It will be named the Cooper Foundation Makers Gallery in recognition of the foundation's support for the program."

This unprecedented scale of makerspace size and resources may yield an incredibly successful avenue for the skills training sorely lacking in the US manufacturing world, as has been frequently documented these days. If more hubs like this are developed where collaboration and cross-pollination saturate young minds to develop engineering skills both traditional as well as unorthodox, we might be in better shape for the coming century than we think.

Donal Thoms-Cappello is a freelance writer for Rotor Clip Company (www.rotorclip.com).

Honda North America Invests In Manufacturing Education In Ohio

The glaring skills gap that plagues America's next generation of labor has garnered much attention as of late. So much so that companies are finally taking the largely unprecedented step of directly investing in labor communities that line up with their interests.

Add Honda to the list of such companies. The auto giant has announced it will devote $1 million to an Ohio-based workforce initiative, called EPIC, aimed at generating interest in manufacturing among youth and students.

Honda North America, based in central Ohio, has mentioned the initiative will include 12 scholarships, worth $2500 each to students earning associate-degrees in manufacturing, as well as software programs designed to teach logic-solving problems to middle and high schools.

Younger students will also have events where they learn the design process of typical manufacturing plants via "mobile labs" that Honda will build to travel from location to location. In addition, Honda will supplement and help to expand an existing work-study program at Columbus State Community College.


With 33 years in the region, Honda North America has the credibility and history to work with local public officials towards a partnership such as this. While it may not look like much when compared to your typical corporate seed money, considering the existing infrastructure Ohio has from its rich auto industry and the overall consensus among public and private communities, it looks likely Honda will see a major return of long-term labor talent well worth more than a million bucks.




Donal Thoms-Cappello is a freelance writer for Rotor Clip Company (www.rotorclip.com).

Tesla's First Acquisition Is In A State That Bars Tesla

This week, Tesla announced its first acquisition, that of Michigan-based tool company, Riviera Tool LLC. Based in Cascade Township, Riviera Tool specializes in machinery for metal stamping. Its welcome into the new Tesla umbrella indicates the electric car giant is prioritizing time-sensitive efforts to meet its promise of 55,000 2015 sales for the much-anticipated Model X.

Ironically, Tesla has been barred by legislation to sell in Michigan, as well as other states such as New Jersey. That may have informed Tesla CEO Elon Musk's decision to acquire Riviera Tools, as a role of funding and possibly expanding a regional manufacturing company in the state that could woo legislators in loosening restrictions. Of course Tesla has a long way to go if it's going

to assure Michigan its innovative model and 21st century technology process won't undermine the traditional auto infrastructure that have propped up the state's employment figures for almost a century.

Yet many in the industry feel it's only a matter of time before Tesla becomes the template for other car companies to follow if they have a chance of adapting to the conditions of a post-globalized manufacturing landscape. Aside from the now seemingly inevitable transition from gas to electric, Apple's recent effort to peel engineering talent from Tesla as part of its top secret automated vehicle project- known as Titan- signals even more innovations explored on a mass level that could turn the industry even more unrecognizable to its current iteration.

In the coming months, Tesla may take more actions like this to generate production power. Look to see where the next acquisition is based, as it could mean a cultural and industry shift for that region ripe for the benefits of a new era in the auto world.

Donal Thoms-Cappello is a freelance writer for Rotor Clip Company.
(www.rotorclip.com)

1950’s: The Decade of Innovation, Inspiration and Elvis Presley

(Excerpt from the upcoming book on Robert Slass, Founder of Rotor Clip Company, a successful US manufacturer of retaining rings)

It was the 1950’s, the decade of optimism, and Bob Slass was swept up in the fervor, no doubt responding to the innovation of American companies taking place all around him.

In 1950 Xerox produced the first copy machine and RCA demonstrated the first single electron color television tube.

In 1952 General Motors earned $558 million and in 1953 Boeing expanded production of the B-52 bomber.

In 1953 Bob took a job with a company with a long history in the U.S. called Waldes Kohinoor. Waldes had been a European company who pioneered the use of snap fasteners for dresses in the early 1900’s. Prior to this product, buttons, and hooks and eyes, were considered the only satisfactory apparel closures at the time. The company was established by Jindrich Waldes, a talented businessman and entrepreneur.Together with his partner, Hydec Puk, he established Waldes & Company in Prague (Czech Republic) to make the new snap fasteners.

The group established factories in Paris, Dresden, Barcelona and the U.S. The American company was established in Long Island City, New York, in 1919 with 25 employees and incorporated as Waldes Koh-I-Noor, which came from a trademark Jindrich had adopted in 1902 from the famous diamond of the same name. The Company’s corporate name was changed to Waldes Kohinoor, Inc., minus the hyphens in 1958.

Robert Slass at his first engineering job  at
Waldes Truarc (circa 1953).

How Waldes made the transition from producing garment fasteners to retaining rings began with a field exercise carried out by the US military during World War II. According to the industry story passed down by word of mouth, the military captured a German tank on the battlefield. They dismantled it and noticed that many components were held together by retaining rings. Retaining rings were a German innovation with the first patent filed by Hugo Heiermann in 1930, but the devices were never fully embraced by US manufacturers.

Fascinated by the technology and eager to apply it to their own equipment, the military persuaded the company to take on the project and in the 1940’s it successfully produced the tooling needed to manufacture a line of retaining rings under the Waldes Truarc brand.

As industry took off in the US in the 1950’s, so did the use of retaining rings when Bob landed his first job at Waldes. Initially, his job was to check the accuracy of engineering drawings from which the tooling was made to produce the retaining rings. As he progressed, he began to design the actual tooling needed to stamp out the specialized shapes and sizes of the many retaining rings the company produced. In this capacity, he joined a distinguished stable of mechanical engineers and together they became experts in the new product line and were instrumental in setting standards and adding new designs to the standard line. He learned everything he could from these experts.

“I made dies according to the 1950’s advances available,” Bob later recalled. This critical knowledge provided the inspiration for Rotor Clip as Bob later improved on these early designs and made his mark on retaining ring technology that would set new industry standards.

The Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants left New York in 1957 for greener and more open pastures in California,

Elvis Presley left young girls swaying in the aisles with songs like “All Shook Up” and “Jailhouse Rock.”

It was also the year Bob Slass opened Rotor Clip, an enterprise he created with his own hands in the true spirit of American capitalism.

Joe Cappello is Director of Global Marketing for Rotor Clip Company. If you would like to continue to receive excerpts from his upcoming book on Rotor Clip and American manufacturing, click here and e-mail him your request. He'll add you to his mailing list for updates.

Manufacturing Careers: From Modified Paint Cans to Electrical design

(Excerpt from the upcoming book on Robert Slass, Founder of Rotor Clip Company, a successful US manufacturer of retaining rings)

In September 1957 Bob Slass opened a small company on Allen Boulevard in Farmingdale, New York, with the intent of making retaining rings. He called his company “RotorClip.”

The company consisted of one, 2,000 square foot building, but that didn’t discourage the young entrepreneur. He knew that he was not only starting a business, but establishing a career whose skills and talents he would call upon to make Rotor Clip the successful company it would someday become.

As manufacturing lost its dominant place in our society, it was easy to find fault with it. Factory jobs were dirty, boring and uninspiring. The work was back breaking and you didn’t use your mind. Many people (especially young people) concluded that a factory wasn’t the place to pursue a challenging career.

PLC's played a key role in one of Rotor Clip's most important

innovations: Rings on Wire.

But innovation and ingenuity were always a part of factory work as Bob demonstrated during the early days of Rotor Clip. For example, he used his knowledge of tools and engineering to refurbish machines and make them productive with very little investment.

Instead of purchasing new plating equipment, he modified empty paint cans and placed them on a cam mechanism he designed and built to mechanically plate rings for corrosion protection.

Bob experimented with stamping “rings within rings” as a way to reduce scrap and get the most efficient yield from a strip of steel. These experiments led to Bob’s design of several generations of progressive dies, concepts that would revolutionize retaining ring production and eventually become his signature work.

Today, manufacturers like Rotor Clip have seen these roles evolve into more complex, technology-based careers like those involving Electrical Design/PLC.

Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC)  play a key role 

in many systems and machines like this security control system.

PLC’s or Programmable Logic Controllers are digital computers used for automation of industrial electromechanical processes. They range from assembly lines, to amusement rides, to light fixtures. PLC’s are used in severe environmental conditions, (for example dust, moisture, heat, or cold), as opposed to a normal computer that wouldn’t work in these conditions. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmable_logic_controller).

PLC systems are inside many things in Rotor Clip’s plant, from security systems to machines used to package retaining rings (See “rings on wire” picture). Machine automation is the future and Rotor Clip relies on Electrical Design Engineers to utilize PLC systems to design and troubleshoot new equipment. 

When they speak of the “skills gap” in manufacturing, they are eluding to the lack of qualifications needed for many of today’s factory jobs. This is due to the failure of young people to see factory work as technology driven requiring more than the ability to turn a machine on and off. But there has been a positive trend recently as educational institutions and corporations partner to provide the skills factories need (like Electrical designers) to improve and thrive in today’s competitive global world.

Whether you’re modifying paint cans as Bob did in the early days of Rotor Clip or programming a machine to automatically shut down in the event of a problem, innovation is the key. There can be no better place to apply that innovation and discover a successful and rewarding career in the process than in today’s modern factory.

Joe Cappello is Director of Global Marketing for Rotor Clip Company. If you would like to continue to receive excerpts from his upcoming book on Rotor Clip and American manufacturing, click here and e-mail him your request. He'll add you to his mailing list for updates.

BOB SLASS AND THE “GARAGE ENTREPRENEURS”

(Excerpt from the upcoming book on Robert Slass, Founder of Rotor Clip Company, a successful US manufacturer of retaining rings)

Robert Slass started Rotor Clip Company in 1957 in a small, 2000 square foot facility in Farmingdale, New York.

“It was like a large living room,” he would say with a smile, as he spoke of those days.

He bought used equipment and refurbished it.

He bought broken stamping presses and made one good one, using parts from the other machines.

He experimented with ways to produce retaining rings from a strip of steel with as little waste as possible, which significantly reduced costs to the customer.

Today, the company he founded occupies over 238,000 square feet in Somerset, New Jersey, and services a variety of companies in North America, Europe and Asia with tapered, constant section and spiral retaining rings, wave springs and self-compensating hose clamps.

“There were a lot of guys like me who started businesses in their garages and American corporations would buy from them,” Bob recalled one day. These small spaces were hotbeds of innovation after World War II, where ideas could be tried and perfected with a minimum amount of investment. Eventually, some of these companies, like Rotor Clip, became leaders in their industries.

Some notable examples:

The first Rotor Clip building in Farmingdale, New York, was

like a "large living room" according to Rotor Clip founder and

entrepreneur, Robert Slass.

1. The roots of HP were nurtured in a garage in Palo Alto, California, with Bill Hewlett and David Packard scraping together an initial investment of $538 in 1939. By 1966 HP entered the computer market and is now one of the world’s largest technology corporations. (The one-car garage where it all began is a designated California historic landmark).
http://www.history.com/news/great-american-garage-entrepreneurs

2. Bernard Silver and N. Joseph Woodland were graduate students at the Drexel Institute of Technology in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the late 1940’s. They got involved in a project proposed by a local grocer to invent a way to encode product data so supermarket items could be automatically checked out. Woodland spent time on the beach at his grandparent’s home in Miami Beach, Florida, drawing shapes in the sand that would form the basis of a graphic version of the Morse code he had learned as a boy scout. He and Silver patented the idea in the early 1950’s, and sold it eventually for $15,000, not realizing that it would someday evolve into the bar codes that would be used on virtually every product.
http://inventors.about.com/od/bstartinventions/a/Bar-Codes.htm

        HP’s original garage operation in Palo Alto, California.
 Today, the structure is an historic landmark.
 (Credit: David Paul Morris/Getty Images)

   3. In 1956, Bette Nesmith Graham of Dallas, Texas, was working as a secretary in an office. She wanted to find a better way to correct typing errors, so she invented a liquid that you could use to “paint” over the mistake, then re-type the correct letter(s). The color of the liquid matched the paper, so the error was often undetectable. Demand for the product she called “Liquid Paper” increased to the point where she turned her kitchen into a laboratory, mixing up product with her electric mixer. Graham’s son, Michael Nesmith (later of “The Monkees” fame), and his friends filled bottles for her customers. Years later, she sold her company for $47 Million.

http://inventors.about.com/od/lstartinventions/a/liquid_paper.htm

  4. Ruth and Elliot Handler started making picture frames in their California garage. They took the scraps of wood and made furniture for doll houses. That garage experience eventually led to their most successful product under the company name “Mattel”: the famous “Barbie” and “Ken” dolls. http://www.history.com/news/great-american-garage-entrepreneurs

      Entrepreneurs like Bob Slass have always been at the heart of any successful economy. Merriam-Webster dictionary defines an entrepreneur as “…one who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise.” This risk-taking characteristic leads to technological breakthroughs that benefit people in the form of improved products and services.

      Entrepreneurial risk taking has its roots in the industrial revolution in both Great Britain and America. Early industrial entrepreneurs dared to believe things could change, that they could improve people’s lives through their ideas and inventions and make the world a better place to live. Prior to this, people were fatalistic; they believed you were stuck with the hand you were dealt and there wasn’t much you could do about it.

      But early entrepreneurs set their sights on problems and through dogged determination solved them. For example, James Watt didn’t invent the steam engine; he solved the problems of these first models. He eliminated the need to cool the piston in order to retract it after the steam drove it forward, greatly saving energy and costs. He also invented the concentric bearing which applied the power of the engine to the shaft in a circular direction. Machinery could now be hooked up to this rotating power source using belts, revolutionizing factory efficiencies and output.

      Similarly, Thomas A. Edison didn’t invent the light bulb; he solved the problems of the earlier versions. He was relentless in his pursuit of a filament that would last long enough to make the light bulb practical for consumer use. After countless hours of experimentation, he settled on a tungsten material coated in carbide. He also created a vacuum on the inside of the bulb which added to its life. We can only imagine how mesmerized the crowd was that came to his Menlo Park, New Jersey, lab in December 1879. There they saw light bulbs that could burn for hours and give off light without the smells and dangers associated with other light sources in use at the time like candles and kerosene lamps.

      When others encounter problems and proclaim, “There’s nothing more we can do,” and “That’s just the way it is,” that’s where the entrepreneur’s work begins. They refuse to accept limitations or give up on an idea though it may take years to refine. From perfecting a longer-lasting light bulb, to improving the design and efficiencies of retaining rings, entrepreneurs all over the world apply their skills to the relentless pursuit of solving problems.

      And the rest of us are the chief beneficiaries of their efforts.

Joe Cappello is Director of Global Marketing for Rotor Clip Company. If you would like to continue to receive excerpts from his upcoming book on Rotor Clip and American manufacturing, click here  and e-mail him your request. He'll add you to his mailing list for updates.

COMING SOON: A POSITIVE BOOK ABOUT U.S. MANUFACTURING

I was visiting my son a few years ago in Los Angeles, California, and was enjoying the limited time I get to spend with him. On this particular day he had some things to do, so I contented myself with visiting a small book store not far from his apartment.

As someone who has worked in manufacturing most of his career, I was naturally attracted to a section that featured books on this subject. To my dismay, the books I browsed contained page after page of once thriving factory buildings lying in various states of ruin.

Robert Slass on the site of Rotor Clip's first building

in 1972. Bob founded the company in 1957 and it is

still a successful U.S. manufacturer supplying 

retaining rings and wave springs to a global market.

I had seen similar books back home particularly those on the steel industry and the theme seemed to be the same: manufacturing in the US is dead and all we can do is mark its demise with grotesque photos of rusted steel and collapsed walls.

That was the last straw.

When I returned home, I vowed to write a book that portrayed Rotor Clip as a U.S. manufacturing company that spanned the very era of demise depicted in these books, yet was not only still standing, but thriving. I wanted it to be a tribute to our founder, Robert Slass, and, to a greater extent, to the very qualities of innovation and entrepreneurship that he exemplified as part of our country’s manufacturing culture.

I was determined not to make this a public relations piece that was more glitz than substance. Many company histories are well-meaning, but they tell a very parochial story that only those close to the company would really care to hear.

Finally, I wanted to call attention to careers that a young person could pursue in manufacturing that involve the same technology and innovation we equate with hi-tech companies. Jobs in manufacturing today are not the boring, monotonous ones that our grandfathers performed. Rather, they are career paths, requiring higher level skills as well as manual dexterity that can be very satisfying and rewarding.

I have been fortunate to work with a group of dedicated folks here at Rotor Clip who are assisting me in this project. With their help we hope to have the book available in e-book form by the summer. If you’d like to receive automatic excerpts over the next few months, click here and e-mail me your request. I'll add you to my mailing list for updates.

One of the books I skimmed while at that LA bookstore was a photo collection depicting the ruins of Detroit. It noted how many developed parts of the city were being overtaken by trees, grass and flowers.

 “Its emptiness is an invitation to wander and reflect upon the new and radical solutions for the Detroit of the future,” noted the author, Andrew Moore. Perhaps this passage is exhorting us to look at the decay of Detroit as a kind of creative destruction. The old must make way for the new. Or, as the motto after the Detroit fire of 1805 put it more aptly,” We hope for better things; it (Detroit) will arise from the ashes.^”1

In case you haven’t noticed U.S. manufacturing has begun its rise from the ashes. It won’t be meteoric, but it will be reminiscent of the ambition and drive of entrepreneurs like Bob Slass who through their collective vision made U.S. manufacturing the envy of the world.

It’s time we see American manufacturing in a new light, not one obscured by the images of past decay.

Joe Cappello is Director of Global Marketing for Rotor Clip Company. If you would like to receive excerpts from his upcoming book on Rotor Clip and American manufacturing, clickhere and e-mail him your request. He'll add you to his mailing list for updates.

¹DetroitDisassembled, Philip Levine, Andrew Moore, Akron Art Museum and Damiani Editore, Copyright 2010, Page 119