By: Deborah Johnson Wood
In October 2007, EarthTronics, a Muskegon firm focused on producing energy efficient lighting, had a goal of creating 30 jobs. They’ve almost made it — they’ve created 20 so far, six of them within the last few months.
The Muskegon-based innovator is currently operating out of Grand Valley State University’s MAREC facility, and will move to new offices in downtown Muskegon in November.
While the compact fluorescent lights (CFL) are assembled in China, EarthTronics’ Reg Adams says the company is working on ways to bring some of the assembly to the region.
“Our overhead high bay lighting fixture will be assembled here eventually,” Adams says. “The fixture is very large and bulky. It doesn’t make sense to ship it from overseas.”
The company is also exploring inventing a new generation of glass bending equipment that makes the bulbs.
“The problem with CFL technology is that one person can only do 150 pieces per shift, so it’s very slow when building millions of light bulbs,” Adams says. To put it in perspective, in September the company produced 15 million bulbs.
“The biggest cost factor is labor because we have to use so many people,” Adams continues. “The new machine could do 500 pieces a shift, and one operator handles three machines. Then we can look at alternatives from a manufacturing standpoint.”
Adams says they plan to launch the EarthBulb, the company’s signature product, in the European market this fall.
In preparation, the company plans to hire at least two bilingual customer service employees, one who speaks English and Spanish, and one who speaks English and French.
Source: EarthTronics
Related Articles
MAREC start-up creates 30 jobs through earth-friendly venture with China firm
Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].
Enjoy this story?
Sign up for free solutions-based reporting in your inbox each week.