(Editor’s note: This is the 25th installment in a monthly series highlighting some of the region’s unsung manufacturers that make products essential to the economy and, in many cases, our way of life. See previous installments here.)
Joshua Holt’s roots run deep in Rhode Island. He was born and raised here. He graduated from the University of Rhode Island’s computer science and engineering department. And he has owned a multimillion-dollar industrial automation company in Bristol for a decade.
But there is a Rhode Island disconnection when it comes to his customers.
Orbit Motion Systems has had only a single client in the Ocean State over the years, having sold its products to companies in the Midwest. “Most of what we do has been outside of Rhode Island,” Holt said.
But that may soon change.
Along with his wife, Jennifer, who also serves as Orbit’s controller, Holt is now embarking on a campaign to flood Rhode Island with automated packaging and assembly machines, one unit at a time.
“We only recently started advertising,” Holt said. “It has been based mostly on reputation and word of mouth. This is our first year going down that path and we are starting to think more about marketing, posting videos of machines running on Instagram and other platforms.”
The Rhode Island lone customer was Jade Engineered Plastics Inc., which uses an Orbit customized standalone press machine equipped with quick-change tooling for smaller-sized components. The machine runs automatically, packaging and assembling stacks of parts with ease.
Nationwide, Orbit’s packaging and assembly machines have been used by food and beverage companies such as PepsiCo Inc. and Nestlé S.A. and corporate giants such as GSK PLC (formerly GlaxoSmithKline) and The Procter & Gamble Co.
At Orbit, which is registered under the name Atlantic Automation Group LLC, the reception area of the 12,000-square-foot facility includes a display of dozens of recognizable products that have been packaged with Orbit machines, including Lindt truffles, Colgate toothpaste and bottles of Lysol.
To highlight their newfound desire to localize their customer base, the Holts placed a large stack of Narragansett Beer cases beside an automated packager. The machines can also be retrofitted for other tasks such as organizing and packaging boxes of containers, known as “palletizing.”
But in the reception area, the machine was silently waiting for someone to turn it on and package some local lager.
The unit is equipped with suction cups attached to a sleek-looking arm that can pick up and carefully place down anything exactly where it belongs.
“We call it a collaborative robot,” he said. “This allows a much smaller footprint.”
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ATTENTION TO DETAIL: Controls engineer Carlos Diaz works on the assembly line at Orbit Motion Systems in Bristol./PBN PHOTOS/MICHAEL SALERNO[/caption]
Orbit Motion Systems is an offshoot of Massachusetts-based Orbit Motion Technologies, a company founded in 1982 that focused on mechanical clutch brake assemblies. Holt began there as an employee and bought some of its intellectual property in 2014, walking away with its logic controller program software and source code.
Holt opened operations in Bristol and then added a more technical layer by introducing robotics and precision engineering, pivoting to automation machines that can help companies increase efficiency. The company started with about a half-dozen employees and now has about 20.
Orbit continued expanding by manufacturing customized tools and building custom software systems for assembly lines.
The timing was good, as consumers were increasingly shifting to online purchasing while brick-and-mortar stores were fading. Precision and customization became more important to retailers, particularly those who sell packaged goods.
The typical machine costs about $200,000. And the Holts have made a habit of keeping new innovations close to the vest to prevent competitors from hijacking trade secrets.
At a recent business expo, a couple of competitors stopped by the Orbit booth and asked a lot of questions, known in industry circles as “tire kicking,” though they seemed uninterested in making a large capital expenditure.
Holt says that globalization has increased the chance of losing intellectual property to offshore firms.
“Not everyone cares about patents,” he said.
To get a sense of the intricacy of these machines, Orbit brings in between $4 million to $5 million in annual revenue but sells and ships about 20 units.
And a business owner need not be a Fortune 500 company with a seven-figure capital budget to do business with Orbit. The company does retrofits on decades-old equipment.
Control systems can always be upgraded or just swapped out.
“You could build a new house or retrofit an old one,” Jennifer Holt said. “It’s the same machine with just different applications.”
Now fully staffed and eager to take on more work, Orbit is gearing up for its next expansion.
Operations Manager Jon Kalberg says the company is always looking for the next subsector to penetrate. One potentially lucrative industry is in recreational cannabis distribution, a perfect fit because it involves an endless number of variations in packaging and size.
“We are always asking ourselves: ‘How do we scale up?’ ” he said.
As for the Rhode Island manufacturing sector, Joshua Holt thinks the state could do a better job directing resources toward connecting manufacturers with local businesses while also increasing investments in training for technologies on the cutting edge.
As a mid-level operation, continuing to rely on in-house training can be draining, Holt says.
“You can’t just hire anyone off the street who has some experience in industrial automation,” he said.
