Chico State students maintain dominant record at Society of Manufacturing Engineers competition with 11th Grand Prize since 1987
 

 

The Sustainable Manufacturing Program at California State University, Chico won the Grand Prize for the 11^th time at the prestigious 2011 Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) for their mountain bike chain guide and bash guard. The challenge was held on April 5 at the AeroDef Manufacturing Convention in Anaheim. The team of students in the Chico SME chapter designed and manufactured the tooling and full production system for the mountain bike chain guide and bash guard. Two things made CSU, Chico's project stand out at the competition, said Daren Otten, coordinator of the Sustainable Manufacturing Program and adviser to the team: the attention to detail by the students for defining and documenting the complete manufacturing process and an emphasis on sustainability.

 

CSU, Chico has also won the Grand Prize in this competition in 1987, 1993, 1995, 1998, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009.The details in the team's project included not only the design, analysis and fabrication of the chain guide and bash guard, but the tooling and fixtures for mass production and the project management plan for the entire project. The materials used in this ready-for-market product were chosen with an emphasis on sustainability; they included recycled plastic components and cardboard package inserts, as well as a fully compostable plastic package. "This project was a year-long project and was completed as an extracurricular activity on students' own time," said Jason Teixeira, chairman of the SME student chapter. "In this time, we took an idea through design, prototyping, testing and production. Our planning and documentation of the whole process matched industry standards. The project demanded a huge time commitment from all of the team members, and their dedication and talent made it possible."

Twelve students in the Sustainable Manufacturing Program from Chico made the trip to the manufacturing challenge this year, though many others were involved in the project. All are members of the Chico SME Chapter S139. Tony Arena, Cody Leuck, Jason Teixeira, Alex Ward, Louk Hendricks and Oliver Hayes presented the project."We are all very pleased with the recognition we have received, and proud of our work." said Teixeira. The project display booth was open at CSU, Chico's preview day on Saturday April 9, on the first floor of O'Connell Hall, and another showing of their presentation will be announced soon.

 

This was the first bi-annual AeroDef manufacturing trade show, and it was extremely successful. The Manufacturing Challenge is sponsored by the international SME, which has more than 400 professional and school-based chapters worldwide.

 

For more information contact Otten at 530-898-4316 or dmotten@csuchico.edu. Teixeira can be reached at 530-613-4834 or jteixeira4@mail.csuchico.edu.

 

Article by Kathleen McPartland, University Affairs (898-4260).

 

Steve Gonsalves Chairman of the Board, CEPCO

Message from the Chairman

May, 2011 

 

 

Periodically, every organization or community needs to do a self-evaluation. Times, trends and technology change, and to keep pace, communities need to frequently assess how ready they are to attract and retain key enterprises. CEPCO and its partner organizations are currently engaged in an evaluation of our community's readiness to assist entrepreneurial businesses in Chico. Assisting innovation is one of CEPCO's key strategies to help our community move forward economically. It is exceedingly difficult to attract an established fortune 500 type business to a community. The competition is fierce and the odds of success are not good. Obviously, when a community does attract an established company that invests in a new plant and equipment and creates several thousand new well paying jobs, that community has hit a home run. CEPCO believes hitting a dozen singles is more realistic and actually better for the long-term economic health of our community. Helping twenty innovative start-ups in a number of diverse industries grow into mature companies that employ 50 to 250 or more people creates the same number of jobs in the long term without the risk of "economic Armageddon" when a town's one major employer leaves or closes.

CEPCO has identified several crucial ingredients a community must have to help innovative start-ups get established, mature, and become desirable acquisitions for other enterprises. This is a common life-cycle among entrepreneurial companies and acquisition is often the desired end-game of the entrepreneur. One misconception frequently held is the sale of a home-grown successful company is a negative event. Our research shows just the opposite is true. Case studies of five companies started and developed in Chico and later sold to out-of the-area firms shows four of the five have remained in Chico and have actually grown in terms of the number of people they employ. These well paying jobs have remained in our community. All five of the founders of the companies in our case studies have also remained in Chico and have used some of the wealth they gained through sale of their companies to finance other young entrepreneurs who hopefully will achieve the same success.

It is interesting to think of the successful entrepreneurial business cycle in terms of the classic political debate about the merits of a "trickle down" versus a "percolate up" economic policy. In an entrepreneurial innovative business community you have both "trickling down" and "percolating up" happening simultaneously. As young companies grow and develop they add jobs and part of the wealth generated "trickles down" to local households whose standard of living is increased. Upon the sale of successful company, part of the wealth generated though the sale is reinvested helping to "percolate up" the next generation of entrepreneurial businesses. It is not an either/or proposition but rather an oscillating wave of business development that enriches a community.