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W W W. M A I N E B I Z . B I Z 19 F E B R UA R Y 2 0 , 2 0 1 7 F O C U S T E C H N O L O G Y After graduating from Washington County Vocational School and e Boat School in Eastport, he worked for custom racing sail boat builder Goetz Custom Sailboats in Bristol, R.I., from 1983 to 1997. Among his work was making cut boats for America's Cup teams, which are secretive about designs that may give them an advantage. "We had two going on in the same shop, so we had to sign in and out of different areas for confi- dentiality reasons," he says. "We built these racing sailboats that were stronger and lighter weight, so I got to see different designs." Now, he says he takes his experience in tech- nology and applies what it to customers' projects. "People want things that are higher and higher performance to push the envelope." Much of his new business involves making items lighter and better performing. One example, he says, is replacing metals with composites in custom- ers' components. "Replacing standard equipment with next-gen- eration parts equates to the machine running faster and having less wear and tear," Steve says. Engineered Automation of Maine, a Biddeford company that makes automated machinery and industrial engineered automation systems for cus- tomers' manufacturing processes, is doing just that with a medical industrial client. EAM makes a set of machines that its customer uses to remove two parts from its own machine and then weld them together. e end result is a sterile pack that protects a tray of three needles and sutures for surgery. "Our product goes into an injection molding machine [of our customer] and pulls out the parts," says Bob Bartlett, an engineer at EAM, and then fuses the two parts. "We needed a lightweight arm [in our machine] to do this picking." EAM's earlier machines used a metal arm, but Bartlett says a carbon fiber arm would speed up the process of pulling out parts. "We needed a part that was lightweight not just for strength," he says. "It helps the machine to work faster." And that translates into building more trays and making more sales because EAM's machines appear to be more high tech, he adds. "e mold opens in 1 second compared to the old ones that took 1-1/2 and 2 seconds," he says. "Every mold makes 32 pieces that are pulled out and joined into 16 trays. So we save 8 seconds to mold that." at might not sound like much, but since his client runs operations 24-7, saving even one second off of a cycle results in making more parts and pay- ing back the extra cost of the carbon fiber used in EAM's machine, which is priced at about $1 million. "e only way we could go faster was to go lighter through new materials," Bartlett says. "It may help you sell a product and it says you are high tech." From aircraft to robots Maureen says Steve is focusing more now on wide- spread use of composites in other industries. "In the past we saw a lot of high-performance parts built for boats, but not everyone keeps buying these parts so we're looking past the marine indus- try," Steve says. Indeed, Custom Composite's production manager, Zack Parent, says even those making high-perfor- mance boats typically make their own molds as well. Parent previously worked for Sweden's Team Artimus to build its America's Cup boat in California. "Not many companies get to work directly with an America's Cup team," Parent says. "ey're very confidential." One of its recent branching out projects, Maureen says, is making C-shaped leg molds for robots. ey're part of the "Robot Revolution" exhibit designed by the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, spon- sored by Boeing and Google and now on display at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. "Robot Revolution" includes 40 cutting-edge robots curated from some of the most innovative global robot- ics companies and universities. More than half of the robots are interactive, including the Maneuver RHex (pronounced Rex) made by University of Pennsylvania students using the C-shaped leg molds from Custom Composite. e RHex is an all-terrain crawling robot. And while the Hassetts didn't connect all-terrain robots with the military, Maureen says the company is looking to get more business in the defense industry after having one project in that industry last year. Probably one of the more unusual, and everyday, products the company makes is a mold for Jarden Plastic Solutions of East Wilton, which is now called Newell Brands after is was acquired by Newell Rubbermaid Inc. last year. e end product from Newell: plastic cutlery. Lori Valigra, Mainebiz senior writer/content specialist, can be reached at lvaligra @ mainebiz.biz and @LValigra

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