By Shelia Watson
Contributing Writer

One of the challenges Michael Bolick faces as an advanced materials manufacturer has nothing to do with processes, supply chains, labor or any of the other typical challenges manufacturers must handle.

As president and CEO of Selah Technologies LLC, Bolick’s primary challenge is dealing with the perception, or rather the misperception, that nanotechnology and other similar knowledge-based work is ringing the death knell of manufacturing in South Carolina.

“When people hear things about the knowledge economy and knowledge-based businesses, they make an assumption that we’re going to end up closing the manufacturing plants and outsourcing all the work overseas and then sit here in front of our computers,” he said. “But that’s simply not true. That’s not what the knowledge economy is about.”

What the knowledge economy is about, at least in the case of Selah Technologies, is “a strategic realignment toward higher-value products,” Bolick said.

“We’re now starting to generate knowledge to expand in a way that allows us to focus on higher-margin products. That does not mean that manufacturing is dead. Quite the opposite.”

Bolick gives the example of his 10 years in manufacturing in the pharmaceutical industry.

“That’s an industry that relies heavily on intellectual property and trade secrets and it incorporates good manufacturing practices with requirements from the (U.S. Food and Drug Administration),” he said. “That’s an example of a knowledge-based economy. It may not be a commodity product with bulk materials, but it is without a doubt a manufacturing process.”

Selah Technologies operates in a fashion similar to the pharmaceutical process he described, with intellectual property licensed from research on nanomaterials and nanotechnology conducted at Clemson University. The company produces two platforms of the technology: carbon-based quantum dots, some of which are used in cancer research, and carbon-walled nanotubes, which can be used in LCD screens, HDTV products and other electronic equipment.

“When we say we’re a nanotechnology company, what we’re actually saying is that we’re an advanced materials manufacturer using nanotechnology as a means to an end,” Bolick said.

That “end,” the nanoproducts, is what attracted the attention of the South Carolina Research Authority’s SC Launch! program, which invests money in high-tech and knowledge-based businesses, particularly those in early-stage development.

Bill Mahoney, president and CEO of SCRA, said the nanotechnology made Selah Technologies “especially promising.”

“This is the beauty of composite manufacturing, that you can take pieces and parts and put them with other things to make something even greater,” he said. “Even before the SC Launch! investment, we provided enough money to determine proof of concept, to see if what they had was a big enough manufacturing process to produce the nanodots to justify the cost. It’s important to see what the technologies are capable of before we go to market.”

One of the market applications of the nanomaterial is in cancer treatment. In identifying where healthy cells leave off and cancerous cells start, nanodots are used in certain treatments, but they’re usually made out of lead, which means they’re toxic in the body. The carbon nanodots produced by Selah Technologies can be processed in the body, which Mahoney calls “a huge breakthrough.”

“Putting money from the SC Launch! program into Selah allows that technology to get into the commercial market that much faster,” Mahoney said. “But none of that could happen without first ensuring that the manufacturing of the products would work."

Market-driven changes
Mahoney said innovation in the manufacturing world is critical for success, whether the business is a startup or an existing company.

“A lot of the new products and technologies cannot be manufactured without revamping the processes or equipment that create the products,” he said.

Such is the case with Progressive Machine & Design, based in Rochester, N.Y., which has a second facility in Spartanburg, S.C.

The company, known industrywide as PMD, specializes in providing custom manufacturing solutions for several industries, including the medical, cosmetic, electronic, fuel cell and automotive fields.

“We employ state-of-the art techniques with things like robotics, vision verification, vision-guided motion for robotics, high-speed assembly and high-accuracy placement within 10 microns or better,” said Steve Cairns, business development manager.

Innovation in manufacturing is something his company keeps up with on a day-to-day basis.

“In that sense, it seems to be a gradual process of incorporating technology into what we do, because there’s never been a moment where we stopped, looked around and decided to make changes,” he said. “A vast majority of the systems we do today are far more technologically involved and innovative than they were 10 years ago, but the change happens continually.”

Cairns said the marketplace is driving much of the change.

“For instance, a lot of our customers are using bar-code tracking,” he said. “Bar codes can store a lot of information, so it’s definitely an innovation that is becoming more and more commonplace. But that means our systems have to be able to read the bar codes.”

One of the techniques PMD has employed is called “proof of process.”

“When a customer comes to us with an untested or risky process or assembly technique, oftentimes we’ll spend a little time and money with the customer early on while he’s still developing it,” explained Cairns. “We’ll study it to be certain the innovation is a good process or technique, and that helps mitigate the risk.”

The innovations, Cairns said, often are applied across the board with other customers.

“I’d say probably 40 to 50 percent of these innovations are migratable to other industries,” he said.