- Faster Speed to Market for New Products and Work-Team Collaboration are Focus of GE's New 17,000-Square-Foot NPI Accelerator Lab
- Industrial Customers across the U.S. and Canada Welcome GE Odyssey: Road to Renewal, New Product and Service Demo Truck Launching Five-Month Tour
PLAINVILLE, Conn. --- May 3, 2013 --- Enabling GE (NYSE: GE) engineers to design, develop and deliver new products faster than ever before, GE's Industrial Solutions business today announced the opening of its $1.5 million, 17,000-square-foot New Product Introduction (NPI) Accelerator Lab located at the business' headquarters in Plainville, Conn. The lab enables engineers to focus their attention on developing technologies that customers are demanding and strengthens GE's ability to respond quicker to changing market conditions.
In conjunction with the opening, GE also kicks off this year's completely renovated customer road tour, GE Odyssey: The Road to Renewal. A five-month traveling road show throughout the U.S. and Canada, GE's Odyssey truck highlights innovative product and service offerings from the Industrial Solutions business.
The NPI Accelerator Lab features a team room, high-tech machine shop, product teardown area and pilot-run production area. To celebrate the facility's opening, GE is hosting a Technology Day for local high school students, employees and media with a variety of activities to inspire creative engineering and the spirit of innovation, some of which include:
- GE Innovation Regatta Challenge -- Students from Plainville High School and University High School of Science and Engineering (UHSSE) will compete in a challenge designed to further pique their interest in applied science and engineering. With just a few, simple materials, teams of students paired with a GE engineer will design and build mini sailboats to race, propelled only by the wind from a floor fan.
- FIRST® Robotics Demonstration --- "The Dragons - Team 1991," comprised of students from UHSSE, will demonstrate the abilities of a robot they built under the guidance of GE engineers, for the FIRST Robotics Competition. The robot performs amazing feats including climbing a pyramid and targeted Frisbee throwing.
"The NPI Accelerator Lab co-locates our engineering, sourcing, product management and supply chain teams enabling improved communication and cross-functional engagement," said Paul Singer, senior executive of engineering for GE's Industrial Solutions business. "From rapid-prototyping capabilities to shorten product-cycle time, to our tear-down area for conducting product comparison analysis, this new facility with state-of-the-art equipment enables our team to quickly troubleshoot design challenges, apply manufacturing processes and gain invaluable hands-on experience."
This NPI Accelerator Lab is part of GE's leadership in Advanced Manufacturing. GE is redefining the future of industry --- through new, agile processes, inventing breakthrough products and inspiring an open and collaborative workforce. The company is building a culture committed to delivering better outcomes for its customers faster. It is increasing its speed, finding greater efficiencies and injecting new processes for better outcomes that unlock new productivity and growth. GE is making better things in a better way and leading the next industrial revolution.
Odyssey Tour Kickoff
This year's tour, GE Odyssey: The Road to Renewal is centered on discovering new ways to keep workplaces safe and reliable through retrofitting and upgrading aging industrial electrical infrastructures with innovative new technologies.
The Odyssey tour will bring the latest industrial products, services and aftermarket solutions to GE's customers in more than 80 cities across North America. Attendees can experience the advanced technologies that touch all parts of the electrical infrastructure --- including GE EntelliGuard® circuit breakers, Entellisys* 5.0 low-voltage switchgear, arc flash mitigation products, life cycle service solutions, critical power products including uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems and more.
By bringing the Odyssey tour directly to customers' facilities, they are able to see, touch and experience GE's products and services firsthand. Working with these customers to identify their reliability, protection and efficiency issues, GE's Industrial Solutions business delivers and demonstrates end-to-end electrical infrastructure solutions to address these critical challenges customers are facing today.
For a full schedule of Odyssey tour stops and additional details on the tour, please visit www.geindustrial.com/odyssey.
Industrial Solutions, a GE heritage business, is leading the future of electrification with advanced technologies that protect and control the distribution of electricity throughout a facility's infrastructure. The business provides customers, across various industries, with end-to-end product and service solutions that help ensure the reliability and protection of the electrical infrastructure. Industrial Solutions' product and service solutions add to GE's broader portfolio of leading technology solutions for the delivery, management conversion and optimization of electrical power for customers across multiple energy-intensive industries.
About GE
GE (NYSE: GE) works on things that matter. The best people and the best technologies taking on the toughest challenges. Finding solutions in energy, health and home, transportation and finance. Building, powering, moving and curing the world. Not just imagining. Doing. GE works. For more information, visit the company's website at www.ge.com.
Follow GE Energy Management and its Industrial Solutions business on Twitter @GE_EnergyMgmt and @GEindustrial.
*Entellisys is a registered trademark of the General Electric Company.
Howard Masto
Masto Public Relations
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Gina DeRossi
Soteryx Corporation
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+1 518 886 1076
GE news
Masto Public Relations
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Kate Johnston
GE Industrial Solutions
kate.johnston@ge.com
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