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Vacaville, California – March 14 – E Tech Group, one of the largest industrial automation firms in the United States, announced today the promotion of Stan Reyna to Vice President of Life Sciences. Reyna has over 17 years of experience with E Tech Group, where he served in various roles including Director of Operations for Banks Integration, an E Tech Group Company. He was appointed to the role by previous Vice President Gary Powell. Powell was promoted last month to Senior Vice President of Operations. “Stan’s long tenure with our company has given him deep experience in the needs of our clients and, most importantly, our own team members,” said Powell. “His strategic thinking, strong work ethic and technical capabilities make him a great resource and leader for our west coast team.” Powell and Reyna are working together on transition through the end of March, when Reyna will officially assume the role. “During all the years I have worked at Banks / E Tech Group, I saw how our former founder Greg Banks and later our Senior Vice President Gary Powell have empowered and invested in our employees to do magical things,” said Reyna. “Their leadership helped us to provide creative solutions to complex Life Science automation challenges and ultimately helping our customers save lives and manage diseases. This is the same inspiration that continue to drive me today, and I aim to impart that same leadership and support to our team in my new role.” About E Tech Group: Excellence in Automation Founded in 1993, E Tech Group, Inc. is one of the largest independent industrial automation system integrators in North America, with offices coast to coast and a combined staff of 400+ specializing in industrial automation, information systems, Business Intelligence (BI), machine safety, machine and process modeling, and … Continued
Communication is an essential tool for operational efficiency. Poor communication across manufacturing departments and their control technology can result in production downtime, inferior product quality, unhappy customers, and ultimately the loss of focus as an industry leader. After all, a company’s expertise is their product and generally not control system communications. When one of the world’s largest almond processing companies became unsatisfied with their legacy SCADA system and its limited report capacity, E Tech Group was called to action to support the conversion to a new SCADA system.
Solution
The almond processing company determined Ignition, an industrial application platform from Inductive Automation, was the best platform to standardize their supervisory control and data acquisition across multiple locations. As a Premier Ignition System Integrator, E Tech Group applied their expertise in Ignition implementation to streamline the conversion process and support post-conversion operations. “Complex system upgrades call for advanced expertise. Partnering with a system integrator well-versed in Ignition is essential to drive successful results and a well-executed project”, says Xavier Tristan, Controls Engineer at E Tech Group.
While migrating to the new system, the E Tech Group team resolved network-related challenges and prioritized a user-friendly software design. The team developed screens on the new Ignition platform to closely resemble the company’s legacy system for operator ease and comfort. The goal was to reduce the learning-curve for their client’s workforce as they adopt to the new SCADA system. This enabled the company to enhance their workforce efficiency post-conversion with greater data communications and minimal training costs.
Results
Within a four-month timeframe, the E Tech Group team successfully converted the almond processing company’s legacy SCADA system to Ignition. The new platform equipped the company with enhanced visualization and reporting capabilities to make the right decisions at the right time. This means improved cross-functional efficiency, greater quality assurance, and reduced downtime —all with a more reliable, easier to manage system.
West Chester, Ohio – February 11 – E Tech Group, one of the largest industrial automation firms in the United States, announced today the promotion of Gary Powell to Senior Vice President of Operations. Powell has over 20 years of experience with E Tech Group, where he served in various roles including Director of Operations for Banks Integration, an E Tech Group Company. Gary currently serves as Vice President of Life Sciences. Under his leadership, E Tech’s west coast team expanded engineering staff headcount and grew its client base to include alternative protein and cell-cultured meat manufacturers. Powell will replace Brad Hendrickson, Executive Vice President of Operations, who announced his retirement on February 7, 2022. Said Matt Wise, E Tech Group CEO of the promotion: “We are grateful to Brad for the leadership and wisdom he imparted on his team and E Tech Group as a whole. At the same time that we say farewell to our colleague Brad, we’re excited to have Gary in his new role as Senior Vice President of Operations. The operational best practices developed by Gary and his team are essential as we continue to scale. Gary’s experienced, thoughtful and collaborative approach will serve him well in his new role.” Gary is equally excited about his new position: “I’m excited to work at the corporate level, influencing and driving the direction of the company,” said Powell. “My move to Senior Vice President of Operations is a great example of what’s happening at E Tech right now. We’re growing and there are a lot of opportunities. I have big shoes to fill and want to continue the great work that Brad began with the Operations team.” Powell will remain in his role as Vice President of Life Sciences through the end of March and is working … Continued
Terminating a system integrator can be a difficult decision. From suboptimal performance to poor communication, unfulfilled promises from a failed partnership can be devastating to the project outcome and client-integrator relationship. For one of the world’s largest culinary oil production companies, poor communication and staffing issues with a large system integrator challenged the company to find a new partner for state-side support. E Tech Group was given the opportunity to renew their trust in system integrator partnerships.
Solution
Initially, the international culinary oil company was hesitant to engage with another system integrator, but recognized state-side support was needed to uphold future projects and correct the prior integrator’s missteps. E Tech Group addressed their concerns and explained how their solution-focused culture differentiates from others. “E Tech Group has a strong reputation for delivering best-in-class solutions. Our goal as a cohesive team is to find every opportunity to improve operational efficiency for our customers. This is how we foster confidence as long-term, solution-focused partner”, adds E Tech Group Project Manager, Amit Jadhav.
A key project that needed support was integrating the oil company’s weight scale system with Ignition, an industrial application platform by Inductive Automation, to empower timely data and inventory reporting. The E Tech Group team scheduled weekly status meetings to inform stakeholders on the project’s progress and applied their Solution Experts Business approach by staffing the project with specialized personnel to get the job done right. “This customer was amazed at how fast I could implement their ideas with Ignition.”, remarks E Tech Group Controls Engineer and Ignition subject matter expert, David Schmidt. “E Tech Group has years of experience working hands-on with customers and, with this customer, this resulted in a very smooth development process.”
Result
E Tech Group successfully integrated the Ignition software and is currently on the next step of this engagement — integrating Ignition with the company’s SAP system for enhanced enterprise connectivity. The oil production company was thoroughly impressed with E Tech Group’s commitment to their word, notably their schedule flexibility, transparent communication, and multidisciplinary support approach. The company saw the advantage of having E Tech Group as a trusted partner and committed to an extended support service contract to formalize the new partnership.
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