Rutland Firm Bets Magnet Tech On Wind Power
There’s no shortage of stories about American companies that can’t cope with competition from overseas, and in manufacturing, that typically means China. But there are also stories, and more lately, about companies that have found ways to compete with Chinese industry, and BJA Magnetics in Rutland is one of them.
Like many, the company that owns BJA Magnetics, Bob Johnson Associates, was a machine shop watching as Chinese strength in the machine tool industry increased. The industries Bob Johnson served were turning to China.
In 2003, magnetic industry veteran Richard Helle and his wife Janice, who is now the company’s CEO, bought the company. But that doesn’t mean things got any easier.
“In magnetics, all production was moving to China,” he said. “Their natural resources and low labor rates; within three years time, the raw materials stores went from 90 percent in the U.S. to 80 percent in China.”
“U.S. suppliers could no longer compete,” he added. “And they couldn’t manage to coordinate their technical wants and needs with China.”
And that’s where BJA saw an opening.
It Takes A Village…
BJA offers magnet design assistance, as well as manufacturing and distribution of not only permanent magnets, but the assemblies and sub-assemblies of which those magnets are part.
All that expertise gives the 10-employee company a pretty wide reach.
“It really is a global village,” Helle said. “People don’t realize how true that is.” BJA supplies magnets to companies in Singapore, China, Europe, Central America and other regions.
And while many companies faced with almost overwhelming competition from China and other countries turn toward niche manufacturing and almost extreme specialization, BJA has taken the diversification tack.
In part, that has to do with the fact that magnets have numerous applications. The top sectors served by BJA are heavy industry, medical devices, defense and wind power.
In the defense industry, BJA is a second-tier company. That is, the suppliers that contract directly with defense companies like Raytheon hire BJA to make some of the things they supply to the defense industry giants.
When it comes to wind power, magnets are in the right place at the right time, Helle said. He said a shift is afoot in the wind industry that favors permanent magnet generators.
Wind turbines turn slowly, too slowly for the induction generators and copper coils inside of them to make enough power. Currently, that problem is solved by adding a gearbox that speeds up the motors. Unfortunately, anyone who’s experienced a gearbox in the form of a car’s transmission knows the lifespan on those things isn’t particularly long. Wind turbines currently have a lifespan of as little as seven years and max out at about 15 years.
BJA has designed materials for a direct drive magnet that eliminates the need for the gearbox in wind turbines. The permanent magnet generator makes for not only a longer-lasting turbine, but a better-performing one, as well.
The way Helle sees it, if Texas oil magnate T. Boone Pickens can get behind the wind industry, so should BJA.
“If an 80-year-old guy is putting his oil fortune into wind power, then we should be looking at that,” he said.
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