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SMALL BUSINESS
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| PORTSMOUTH TOOL & DIE Portsmouth Machinery Manufacturer |
The BusinessPortsmouth Tool & Die is a machine shop that employs 31 people. It makes custom machinery and other precision components for manufacturing businesses nationwide. The PlayersJim Woodruff, Portsmouth Tool & Die owner, and Robert Harrell, Hampton Roads regional director for Virginia's Center for Innovative Technology (CIT). |
 artwork by Chris OBrion |
The Problem Portsmouth Tool & Die needed to upgrade an old product to keep a prominent customer happy, but the company didn't have the necessary time or capital to improve the product's technology. The Background Hamilton Beach/Proctor Silex, a consumer appliance maker, wanted better performance from an armature impregnator machine that Portsmouth Tool & Die had built. |
| Portsmouth Tool & Die had a reputation
for being an innovative and hard-working company,
but its engineers had neither the money nor the
manpower to significantly improve the old
impregnator, a device that insulates the small
electric motors used in many appliances.
Fortunately, the Portsmouth company knew where to
turn for help. The answer came in the form of
Robert Harrell, the CIT's regional director in
Hampton Roads. The Solution The CIT used its brainpower databases to connect Portsmouth Tool & Die with experts from NASA and Virginia Tech who provided free assistance. "[CIT] certainly has brought us into the real world here," says Portsmouth Tool & Die owner Jim Woodruff. The expert help enabled Portsmouth Tool & Die to build heaters and infrared sensors into its old impregnators to boost their performance enough to satisfy Hamilton Beach/Proctor Silex. In fact, the new impregnator allowed Hamilton Beach to double its output while reducing energy costs. Portsmouth Tool & Die exhibited the machine at a trade show in October and -- using CIT's seven-state printout of small-motor manufacturers -- is building a national marketing plan for the new impregnator. CIT also plans to publicize the company's product in its newsletter, which reaches 12,000 businesses nationwide. Mass marketing its own products is a new endeavor for Portsmouth Tool & Die. Until now it has focused on making custom tools that solve industrial-automation problems for its clients. "CIT was instrumental in making us aware [that] we were leaving a lot of things" on the table without realizing their potential, Woodruff says. "Everybody gains," Harrell says. "We keep the jobs in Virginia, we give Portsmouth Tool & Die business, and the other company gets a quality product." The CIT works with some start-up companies, but it forges most of its long-term relationships with businesses that generate $1 million to $10 million in revenues, according to Harrell. Overall, he says CIT created about 10,000 jobs through partnerships like the one with Portsmouth Tool & Die in fiscal 1998. Virginia Business collects tales of innovations from small businesses statewide. If you have a case study in problem-solving, e-mail lugincius@va-business.com or call (804) 649-6232.
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