Worcester Business Journal

www.wbjournal.com March 28, 2016 • Worcester Business Journal 15 >> M A N U FAC T U R E R S Incom, innovation go hand in hand Incom, Inc.: Product Design & Innovation Award T he U.S. Department of Energy asked Charlton fiber-optic manu- facturer Incom to step out of its comfort zone, and now that partnership is paying dividends. Incom is fresh out of its research-and- development phase of large area pico- second photodetectors (LAPPD) and will begin manufacture of the product with a host of uses, including detection of radioactive materials for scientific and medical applications, high-energy physics applications or even disease in a human body via combination PET/MRI scans, with less radiation. Michael Detarando, Incom CEO and president, is clear the project could not have been further from the company's traditional scope of business of supply fiber optics for commercial applications. "It's something we would have never done in the past, but we saw an opportu- nity and got involved," he said. Incom developed one component at a time for the U.S. Department of Energy, alongside a collaborative group that included Argonne National Laboratory, University of Chicago, University of California, Berkeley Space Sciences Lab and University of Hawaii. "The next thing was that they said we seemed like a good commercialization partner for this [innovation]," Detarando said. Unfamiliar territory To start manufacture of the LAPPD, Incom needed a suitable production facility. The company had been leasing lab space in Charlton, and it is in the midst of retrofitting that space on Sturbridge Road now – the JRD Technology Center – for advanced LAPPD processing. Just to get to this point, Incom spent $2.5 to $3 million in new equipment, Detarando said. The LAPPD project is run by 12 sci- entists but will transition to high-level engineers and then high-level manufac- turers. Before the end of the year, Detarando said — when production begins — the staff at the JRD Center should double. If commercialization goes according to plan, 50 to a few hun- dred more could be hired by 2018. Practicing what he preaches Discovery as an economic driver — along with more science, technology, engineering and mathematics education and advanced manufacturing training — are Detarando's mainstays. Incom's involvement in a project so far out of its comfort zone like LAPPD will ultimate- ly help Central Mass. further stake its claim as a place for innovation. "The greater good is more important," to Incom, said Dale Allen, vice president for community engagement, Quinsigamond Community College of Worcester. "They are invested in educa- tional pathways and the innovation technologies of companies around them. Michael works tirelessly to shepherd that, to help others feed that." Allen has worked alongside Detarando as part of the area's Innovation Technology Accelerations Center, or ITAC, set up with $2 million in state funding in 2014. The group created an advanced-manufacturing training cen- ter based in Southbridge. n Location: Charlton Top executive: Michael A. Detarando, president and CEO Full-time employees: 150 Founded: 1971 Signature product: Large area picosecond photo detector (LAPPD) AT A GLANCE: BY SUSAN SHALHOUB Special to the Worcester Business Journal P H O T O / C O U R T E S Y Incom is the world's largest supplier of fused fiber optics and showcases its LAPPD capabilities at vari- ous industry summits. Industrial Packaging doesn't see boxes Industrial Packaging: Workforce Development & Productivity Award F ounded in Worcester in 1953, Leominster's Industrial Packaging is not a new company; but when it comes to innovation in productivity and workforce development, this second- generation family business is keeping with the times, and then some. "We don't know that there is a box, so we can't think outside of it," said Jarrod DiZazzo, general manager of supply chain services. "We don't consider what has the best benefit for us, but how we can have new ways of thinking that ben- efit customers." The company has won awards from its biggest customer — Frito-Lay — two years in a row, as Multipacker of the Year and Multipack Supplier of the Year, for its service in New England as well as New York and New Jersey That didn't happen overnight. Industrial Packaging has worked hard to ensure it can provide any solutions for packaging clients in the quickest and most efficient ways, DiZazzo said. It reached out to the Massachusetts Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MassMEP) to analyze and improve its production, said MassMEP Project Manager Steven Szydlowski. "I can count on one hand the number of clients that embrace change. This is one of them. They embrace disruptive innovation," Szydlowski said. For a few years now, Szydlowski has worked with Industrial Packaging on improving production innovation, such as eliminating waste. Employees in the Industrial Packaging's former 40,000-square foot building in Oxford were tracked walking 15 miles a day. When the facility grew to 120,000 square feet and moved to Leominster, that dis- tance went down to two miles a day, Szydlowski said, with careful analysis and strategic improvements. "Work comes in on one [facility] side, it's transformed in the center and gets shipped on the other side," he said. Beyond physical changes, the compa- ny culture changed as well, DiZizzo said, becoming employee-centric, delivering client-specific, customized solutions. Whether clients need packaging materials, supply-chain services, prod- uct launch support, warehouse space, custom design and packaging, or pack- aging equipment sales and service, Industrial Packaging aims to be one step ahead of clients' needs and expectations. Some clients will never outsource, DiZizzo said, so the firm began offering packaging supplies and equipment. In terms of workforce development, everyone knows the mission, Szydlowski said, and are given monthly challenges. A plant manager may have to find two new customers, though it isn't techni- cally his or her area of expertise. In simple terms, Industrial Packaging appeals to other companies' need to not having packaging issues slow them down and does whatever it takes to get them there, fast, with open-mindedness, creativity and invested employees. n Locations: Worcester and Leominster Top executive: Matt Hogan, CEO Full-time employees: 29 (175 temporary workers) Founded: 1953 Signature product: Secondary packaging AT A GLANCE: BY SUSAN SHALHOUB Special to the Worcester Business Journal P H O T O / C O U R T E S Y The senior leadership team at Industrial Packaging has partnered with organizations like MassMEP to ensure its workforce is properly trained and operating efficiently.

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