Making Things Happen

By SUE WUETCHER
News Services Associate Director

President of Buffalo Brake Beam, a Lacka-wanna-based manufacturer of brake beams for trains, Stone's previous experience with a state program designed to help manufacturers "wasn't very satisfactory."

But Rebecca Landy, executive director of The Center for Industrial Effectiveness (TCIE) at the University at Buffalo and an acquaintance of Stone's, convinced him that UB GRIT was different.

UB GRIT-UB Greater Regional Industrial Technology Program-is a consortium of engineering schools at universities from the Buffalo-Rochester-Syracuse region that helps small manufacturers become more competitive by incorporating the latest technology into their products.

Buffalo Brake Beam was facing as its major competitor a Mexican company that had significantly increased its market share during the past year. The company applied for and received a $24,278 grant from UB GRIT to conduct engineering analysis of proposed changes in its brake-beam design. The consortium-of which UB is the lead institution-determined that the Rochester Institute of Technology was the most appropriate consortium member to assist Buffalo Brake Beam.

Working as a team, RIT and Buffalo Brake Beam designed a new brake beam that could be produced at a lower cost but which provided improved performance and quality. Faculty at the institute designed and produced a prototype and tested it on its "shake table" to ensure that it performed to the specifications of the company. The company then took the working prototype to a trade show, where a utility company sought specifications on brake beams for freight cars that would mean $300,000 worth of business for Buffalo Brake Beam.

"I was skeptical that (becoming involved with UB GRIT) would be worthwhile for us," Stone says. "But Becky talked us into it (applying for a grant). Right away, we found it was a whole different situation (from his previous experience).

With their help, we were able to design a product that offers more to the customer than just low price," he says. "We're adding more value and quality to the customer product, and it's all due to GRIT.

"They made things happen for us."

UB GRIT is just one of several programs and initiatives headquartered at UB that are designed to help local companies improve their competitiveness in the global marketplace, thereby helping to create and retain jobs.

Programs such as GRIT, TCIE and SPIR-the Strategic Partnership for Industrial Resurgence-help to further those university-community partnerships that UB, government and business officials say are vital to economic development in Western New York and elsewhere in the state.

Luke Rich, vice president/director of the regional office of Empire State Development, a state economic development agency, says government can be most helpful to private companies by assisting them in becoming more competitive.

Programs like GRIT and SPIR help companies from the "perspective of their processes," while initiatives such as TCIE help productivity by aiding in the training and effectiveness of workers, he says.

"Together, they help immensely in ways that make companies world-competitive by enhancing their productivity and worker effectiveness," Rich said.

The pioneering entity for economic development at UB is the Center for Industrial Effectiveness, which will celebrate its 10th anniversary this spring.

Based in the UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and affiliated with the UB School of Management, TCIE's mission is to motivate and help industry to develop people, use technology, improve business practices and modernize products, processes and facilities.

The center takes a "proactive approach" to establishing partnerships with businesses, acting as a "broker within the university and beyond to serve a company and all its needs," said Mark Karwan, dean of the UB engineering school.

TCIE officials cite impressive results: the program has worked with 350 firms in Western New York and has been credited with creating or saving 5,000 jobs in companies ranging from multinationals like General Motors and Pratt & Lambert to small operations with less than 40 employers.

The center provides assistance in a variety of ways, ranging from helping Moog, Inc. develop an ergonomics system that improved accident and injury rates by 69 percent to providing training assistance to Irish Welding Supply Co., a family-owned distributor of welding supplies. (See story on page 2.)

Scott Aviation, a manufacturer of equipment for the aviation and health and safety industries, contracted with TCIE to provide training assessment programs at its Lancaster and Monroe, N.C.-based facilities.

"The training assessments were done by people with experience in business and industry, not just academia," said Ruth Stevenson, human resources director of Scott Aviation. "They have a good understanding of what goes on in a manufacturing plant."

Another local manufacturer, American Axle and Manufacturing, Inc., is in the midst of a five-year training and education project developed by TCIE. The company has achieved its ISO-QS 9001 certification and improved its overall quality rating, said Ron Allman, manager of the Tonawanda Forge plant.

Moreover, some new business has come in "that is partly attributable to the foundation we've put in place in educating our people," Allman said.

"TCIE has been instrumental in helping us get to where we are now."

In addition to its own work in the areas of R&D, process improvement and training and training assessment, TCIE also helps to implement two other major economic development initiatives-the UB School of Engineering's UB GRIT and SPIR programs.

UB GRIT is a two-year demonstration project to assist area businesses in developing new products in cooperation with regional research universities. Funded with $1.5 million from the federal Small Business Administration-upon the initiative of Rep. John J. LaFalce-it serves as a model for small-business product development, and job creation and preservation.

UB GRIT provides the research-and-development expertise that small businesses need, but usually can't afford, to continuously develop and improve their products in order to stay competitive in the domestic and global marketplace and maintain American jobs.

Since the project began in 1995, a total of 14 product-improvement projects have been conducted, or are in the works, by the consortium.

In addition to Buffalo Brake Beam, examples of companies receiving assistance through UB GRIT include BUD Medical Devices of Holland, which received a $20,098 grant to redesign dental implants with the help of faculty and students in the UB schools of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Dental Medicine, and Taylor Devices of North Tonawanda, which received a $49,489 grant to design, test and fabricate new devices that will be used in systems that dissipate seismic energy. Taylor Devices is working with faculty and students from the UB engineering school on the design.

SPIR-the Strategic Partnership for Industrial Resurgence-is a cooperative effort of SUNY's graduate engineering programs at UB, Stony Brook, Binghamton and New Paltz, aimed at bolstering the state economy by promoting the transfer of knowledge from university to industry and by providing consultation, research facilities and resources for industrial restructuring.

Funded by New York State, SPIR grants cover up to 50 percent of a project's cost for hiring faculty, students and other technically trained personnel that small to medium-sized companies cannot afford to hire on their own, and for fees for using sophisticated research facilities, such as those available at UB.

Mark Karwan, dean of the UB engineering school, last week testified at a hearing held by the state Senate Committee on Higher Education that with the assistance of SPIR during 1996, the engineering school served, and was served by interactions with, 174 companies with 356 projects in such areas as R&D, product development/improvement, process and operations improvement, and training and training assessments.

Letters from this past year's SPIR participants anticipate creating 561 jobs and retaining more than 300, thanks to the assistance provided by the program, Karwan added.

Among the Western New York companies that have received SPIR grants are Buffalo Computer Graphics, Inc. of Buffalo, a computer graphics and services company; Global International, Inc. of Buffalo, a manufacturer of lightweight conveyor belts, and Father Sam's Syrian Bread, Inc. of North Tonawanda.

While TCIE, UB GRIT and SPIR are the UB entities with the most interaction with local business, several interdisciplinary centers housed in the engineering school, including the New York State Center for Hazardous Waste Management, the Great Lakes Program and the National Center for Earthquake Engineering Research, have industry-affiliate programs or a significant industrial emphasis, noted Karwan.

With 100 faculty members and 700 graduate students, the UB engineering school "is the largest engineering/R&D unit in Western New York," he said. "We're offering expertise to the business community that can be a major addition to their capabilities."

Moreover, "Our partnerships with the business community are invaluable to the education of students and the expertise gained by faculty members," he said.