MIDWAY — Elan Technology, a Liberty County manufacturer, is among 255 companies worldwide selected to take part in a Massachusetts Institute of Technology study on whether manufacturing can be reinvigorated in the United States.
P.A. “Tak” Argentinis, president of Elan, shared his company’s strategies with researchers for the MIT’s “Production in the Innovation Economy” report, which will be presented today during the program’s annual conference.
Elan, which has 60 employees at its 90,000-square-foot facility in Midway Industrial Park, was one of 12 companies selected in Georgia and 178 in the United States.
Established in 1948, Elan manufactures ceramic and electronic glass insulators used in the automotive, telecommunications, appliance, health, aerospace and defense industries.
Argentinis bought the company in 1990 and relocated from New Jersey to Liberty County in 1996.
MIT researchers, who met with Argentinis to discuss topics such as company management, training, human resources and new product innovation, said Elan was picked for the study because of its performance over the last 10 years.
Elan is among a group of featured “main street manufacturers” that doubled their revenues and increased their head count between 2004 and 2008 in addition to having more than $5 million in revenues and more than 20 employees.
Argentinis said manufacturing jobs can come back to the U.S. and cited companies such as General Electric and Ford that have been returning their production operations to the United States.
“If you’re making a part that goes into a cardiac pacemaker, people have to have it,” he said. “If you make something that goes into a locomotive, people have to have it. … That’s what manufacturing is all about, making products that people must have rather than products or services that are discretionary.”
ABOUT THE MIT STUDY
The results of the study will be published this month in two books: “Making in America: From Innovation to Market,” by Suzanne Berger and the MIT Taskforce on Production in the Innovation Economy and “Production in the Innovation Economy” by Richard Locke and Rachel Wellhausen, editors. For more information go to http://web.mit.edu/pie/research/index.html.