When manufacturing workers go home for the day, the machines will continue working into the morning. With the technology of “lights-out” manufacturing, local manufacturers are competing directly with cheaper overseas manufacturers with the help of computers and machines that keep working after the lights go out.
University of Rhode Island industrial and manufacturing engineering Professor Manbir Sodhi has been working on ways to improve lights-out manufacturing and is working with a number of local manufacturers to implement the system into their operations. While it’s not yet mainstream, lights-out manufacturing could be an important player in the future of Rhode Island manufacturing.
“As labor costs increase, technology costs become cheaper; it’s more economically feasible” to have lights-out capability, he said. “It (lights-out) has to happen. It’s not a question of whether we have a choice. If we’re competing with China and India, we can’t compete with labor so we’ll compete with technology.”
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At Evans Findings Company in East Providence, a contract manufacturing company, machines make small items like electrical and battery components for one shift each day. President and owner Peter Evans said he is preparing the facility for a lights-out expansion that will eventually make up 30 percent of the company’s production.
“We’ve concluded it’s the way to go,” he said, adding that he doesn’t plan to scale back his work force with the addition of more machines. “We want to find more efficient ways of running things and be more productive.”
Manufacturing has seen better days in Rhode Island, but Sodhi said he’s not ready to abandon it. Hopefully, with lights-out manufacturing, he said, Rhode Island and other parts of the country can compete with China, Japan and Mexico, which utilize lower wages to hire more workers.
“We were the pioneers in industrial manufacturing,” Sodhi said. “And maybe we were the pioneers of it leaving too. I haven’t given up on manufacturing yet. It will come back and I think it will come back here, but in a different form.”
According to Sodhi, there are a variety of technological avenues for lights-out manufacturing use, but the most important aspect of the technology is its ability to produce quickly. Evans said he hopes the progression to more lights-out manufacturing will not only mean his company will be more competitive, but also that it might spur more manufacturing in the state.
“I hope it not only gives me more of an advantage locally and globally, but I hope manufacturing will be re-invigorated here because it’s important to the state,” he said.
Progress of lights-out manufacturing into the mainstream depends largely, Sodhi said, on how much pressure the country gets from the overseas market. The more technology we have, he said, the more manufacturers will look to their own “back yard” for products and will invest in building plants and mills, Sodhi said. As of yet, there is no incentive to manufacture in Rhode Island and in other parts of the United States.
“There’s no incentive for a plant here, except if we need the product quickly,” the professor said. China can’t supply product overnight, even if they is was able to employ more workers to make product, Sodhi said. That’s where lights-out manufacturing can earn a competitive edge over competitors. And the Ocean State could use some help in that regard, he added.
“Several centers can be started, and the state government could help out,” Sodhi said. “We have the resources here to make it possible. If the state gave us some mechanism to implement lights-out,” like partnerships or training, the technology would work on a larger scale than a one-by-one basis. There are still kinks to be worked out, however, he said, but the technology is far more advanced for what manufacturers are using it for, so there’s room for growth.
As to whether the economy has affected the spread of lights-out, Sodhi said it has to some extent, but Rhode Island is still far ahead of China and Mexico when it comes to the future of manufacturing. It isn’t cost effective for overseas manufacturers to have lights-out technology; not with their labor costs so low. Here, with labor so expensive and with the gradual spread of lights-out, the technology is becoming cheaper.
“The difference is small batches of manufacturing, specialty items,” Sodhi said. “Now we’re the exception but when we become the majority, we’ll come back. It has to be evening out now for everyone. We’ll reclaim (manufacturing) with more automation.”
“It has here,” Evans said of the tough economy. “(Lights-out) opens up labor
opportunities to work on those things but decreases the demand on the machinery
and people you have working already. When you don’t have the demand or the product,
why keep the machines going all night?”
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