Local tech firm spearheads power project
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
KETTERING — When the country's largest university and a Ohio power equipment company needed expertise for their next step in a product's evolution, they turned to the Dayton area — specifically, the Edison Materials Technology Center (EMTEC).
The goal: Help Liebert Corp. make their Uninterruptable Power Supply units — sometimes called "UPS" units — cooler, smaller and more powerful.
The state of Ohio is boosting the project with $1 million. EMTEC will oversee the work, which will include Ohio State University research.
Any business that relies on continuous, massive data harnessing — utilities, data centers, banks, stock exchanges — relies on UPS electronics, said Jon VanDonkelaar, EMTEC vice president of product development. If you need power and data all the time, you may have a use for a UPS — units that bridge local power grids and computer systems.
Liebert's competitors make similar UPS units, but they take up more space. Liebert is going in another direction.
"They're able to shrink the size (of UPS units) down to same footprint they have now, but it's double the power," he said.
"It's a distinct competitive advantage," said David Swenson, EMTEC vice president for business initiatives.
A Dublin-based maker of power-cooling and monitoring equipment, Liebert has a Shelby County plant — Emerson Climate Technologies — and depends on several Dayton-area distributors, such as Becker Electric Supply and Lyons Electrical Supply, Swenson said.
And if there are manufacturing possibilities, EMTEC is open to putting them in Dayton, he said.
VanDonkelaar — who worked for DP&L for 12 years and left the company as a senior engineer — is managing the project and providing expertise. The project will keep Liebert in Ohio, state and EMTEC officials hope.
"They could do this development in China," he said. "(Parent company) Emerson has a big engineering facility in China, so they could design it there. Of course, our vested interest is to have that manufacturing done here."
"EMTEC's mission is to look at both state and local companies to help them in some of the newer markets, specifically alternative energy in this case," Swenson said.
