Technology helps revitalize Iowa manufacturers

DES MOINES, Iowa — Getting your car clean is a high-tech business, says Steve L'Heureux, who leads Ryko Solutions, an Iowa company that builds car wash bays.

Automated liquid dispensers measure out just the right amount of enzymes to get rid of bugs or additives that break down salt, depending on what part of the world the cleaning bay is headed. And sensors gently guide large sponge-like equipment across your vehicle, regardless of whether it's a Mini-Cooper or a King Cab pickup truck.

Technology has helped the Grimes-based company grow its employment — about 30 percent to nearly 500 workers over three years — and revenue has about doubled to $125 million over four years, said L'Heureux, who has led the operation since he joined Ryko in 2011.

Ryko is an example of how technology can help revitalize manufacturing. And it represents some of the hurdles the industry faces, including a workforce not trained adequately for high-tech business.

"It's one of the challenges, getting qualified people," he said. "Today's manufacturing facilities are not the manufacturing facilities of our fathers."

Ryko and other Iowa advanced manufacturers are working to build a trained workforce with the help of trade groups and schools, such as the Iowa Advanced Manufacturing Consortium and Des Moines Area Community College.

The consortium received a $13 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor in 2012 to promote and implement a program that allows the industry to move into a higher-tech world.

The industry sees technology as growing the need for workers, "instead of saying, 'We need tech to replace people,'" said Susan Metheny, the grant's administrator with the consortium. "It's very different today because they are interacting with computers, processing information and laying out complex problems."

Much of the grant will go toward the state's 15 community colleges to accelerate training of welders and other skilled workers.

As technology use grows within the industry, experts say that will reduce workforce needs.

Iowa's manufacturing industry has struggled since the recession hit. The state has recovered only 15,400 of the 32,000 production jobs, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Manufacturing "is an industry we are always going to have, but it's not going to be a leading job creator because, over time, it will produce more output with fewer and fewer jobs," Iowa State University economist David Swenson said.

Manufacturing is competing with other industries as it tries to rebuild its workforce.

"The same bundle of skills they need are the same skills everyone needs," Swenson said. "Health care, business services, people in financial services. They are all clamoring for IT, for the same raw skill set to be applied to their discipline. But manufacturing has the lead on it."

That's a slight advantage for manufacturing companies.

Accumold in Ankeny, Iowa, sits on an 82,000-square-foot facility and has been around for roughly 29 years. Company leaders also have connected with state initiatives as manufacturing continues to modernize.

"Many think it's the Henry Ford assembly line," said Grace Swanson, Accumold's vice president of human capital. "Our folks are wearing clean-room gowns and work with very high-tech robotics and a lot of cameras."

The company, which molds and assembles parts that help cellphones, pacemakers and other devices run smoothly, employs roughly 2,000 people.

Swanson said computers must be second-nature for many on the shop floor. "They are taking measurements, keying in readings, reading reports," she said. "Some will meet with customers, so communication is important."

Accumold is one of the area companies that works with DMACC to get targeted training. It also awards scholarships to students studying machining and robotics.

Swanson said the program, started in 2006, has helped the company retain nearly 80 percent of the students when they graduate.

"We are having to get young people involved in the specialized learning earlier than in the past," Swanson said. "That's why we now reach out to high school students to involve them in the business early on."

DMACC President Rob Denson said Ryko — and companies like it — understand that "if they can help drive more interest in manufacturing in Iowa, it not only helps them, but also all of the strong manufacturers in Iowa."

In Grimes, Ryko has gone through a sort of revival, ever since Miami-based Trivest Partners poured millions of dollars into it.

Ryko officials say it has become the largest car wash manufacturer in North America, and the second-largest in the world. It recently announced an acquisition of a Canada-based company that owns a 40,000-square-foot building.

The company, which has built more than 14,000 car washes worldwide, has more than 125 versions of soap for its different machines.

Ryko builds its systems as orders come in. The company employs roughly 250 service technicians, sent worldwide and locally to work on car washes at stores such as Hy-Vee, Mills Fleet Farm and Kum & Go.

L'Heureux said he has no doubt technology has helped the country's industry survive. "Advanced manufacturing has saved American manufacturing," he said.