Thomas Doyle has taken QComp Technologies Inc., a company he started 15 years ago, from a 300-square-foot rented space to its own 27,000-square-foot building in a Greenville industrial park.
An electrical engineer, Doyle took the experience he got working five years at General Electric and launched QComp to provide drive and control systems for local manufacturing companies.
“I enjoy projects; they have a start and a finish, and technology. It’s challenging,” he said.
QComp’s business is almost equally divided between two divisions — drives and controls, and robotics and automation. Doyle started the robotics division seven years ago.
“We saw a definite trend in the field of robotics,” he said.
While the use of robots in manufacturing began several decades ago, a wave of popularity flourished in the 1980s. Unfortunately, reliability, software and performance issues caused robotics to be oversold and over promised, Doyle explained.
“In the mid-1990s there was a resurgence in robotics because reliability, software and performance were improved,” he said. “In the last five years, technology has really come a long way,” Doyle said.
QComp’s robotics division is focused on two industrial segments — architectural glass and material handling for consumer products.
Leading the way in global robotic technology is ABB Group, a European conglomerate based in Switzerland. QComp became a licensed ABB integrator in 1998.
Taking a bold step, QComp has recently introduced a new product line of automated guided vehicles (AGVs).
“It took a little over a year to develop the AGV; we were sold on the concept but had to decide if the market was there,” Doyle said.
After losing several projects to an Italian firm who was quoting based on using AGVs, Doyle responded to global competition by introducing his own AGV product line this year.
“We’re really the only company in the U.S. focusing on palletizing with AGVs as part of the key elements,” Doyle said.
QComp has integrated software from a Swedish firm with a standard industrial forklift to create a prototype laser-guided AGV that will be sold with a palletizing system.
Managing the drives and controls division of QComp is Peter Famighetti, an electrical engineer who joined Doyle’s company in 1999 after working at General Electric, Allen-Bradley, Rockwell and other companies. Famighetti hired Doyle out of college at General Electric and the pair kept in touch.
“What we’re doing here at QComp is the same thing I did for the big companies except we’re trying to do it for ourselves and control our own destiny as Jack Welch, my old boss at GE, used to say,” Famighetti said.
QComp’s drives and controls division works mainly in the paper, printing and metal industries.
Doyle has observed a distinctly different philosophy between European and American manufacturers, which he hopes will begin to shift.
“Europeans are more flexible in their manufacturing methods and are OK with a longer payback – three to four years,” Doyle said.
Replacing pallet conveyers, which allows for less product damage, is only one advantage of a laser-guided system. Ultimately, manufacturers will see reduced labor costs, increased safety on the plant floor resulting in more competitive pricing.
“It’s an educational process,” Doyle said.