Academics, businesses leaders and economic development advocates have gathered in Cleveland for a three-day symposium on how the state can generate more jobs and business activity by increasing innovation here.
Clik here to view.
A Timken technician looks over a main-shaft wind energy bearing produced at the company's Tyger River plant in Union, S.C. Timken CEO James Griffith said the company likely would have failed had it not decided, 10 years ago, to focus on innovative new products such as bearings for wind turbines.CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Ohio's economic future depends teaching companies how to develop and then build new products here, academic and business leaders said Monday at a symposium to discuss innovation.
"Being No. 1 in the world in developing new ideas is no longer enough," said Sridhar Kota, assistant director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. He added that American businesses too often develop the big ideas and then have them built overseas. "A lot of product and process innovations come up as you go from idea to product, and we're losing that."
The "Building the Ohio Innovation Economy" symposium that continues through Wednesday at the Intercontinental Hotel in Cleveland was a joint effort of Northeast Ohio technology economic development group NorTech, the University of Akron and the National Academies.
Several speakers detailed familiar facts about Ohio's economy - its dependence on manufacturing, the loss of private-sector jobs over the past 20 years, its challenges in attracting new businesses - before asking what could be done to encourage businesses to reinvent themselves.
"I am a believer that we can change this trend" of lost manufacturing jobs, said James Griffith, president and chief executive of Canton-based steel and bearings company Timken. "I am a believer because we've done this at Timken."
In the late 90s, he said, Timken wasn't growing and future prospects looked grim. The company decided to completely change how it did business, focusing on producing unique products instead of items like steel or simple machine parts. That led to huge job losses when the company shut plants in Ohio, but Timken has since rehired many as its growth strategies have paid off.
"We're still selling steel, but 35 percent of our steel sales were new products or categories," Griffith said. "When you're selling steel made in Ohio to China, you know you're doing something right."
Griffith said the transformation wasn't quick or easy. It took a decade of streamlining all of its operations to recognize where it had unique technologies and how to apply those technologies to problems its customers had.
Many of the economic development officials and academics at the seminar asked how other companies could follow such a transformational model. The answer was typically more funding for federal and state development programs and changing attitudes toward innovation.
When it comes to increased funding, several pointed to Germany's Fraunhofer network, a government-funded organization with a 1.6 billion-euro budget that links 59 research institutes and 17,000 engineers and researchers with businesses.
Charles Wessner, director of the National Academies' Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship program, said many people argue that the United States cannot compete globally because of high labor costs. But wages, government regulations, union membership rates and social programs are all higher in Germany. Yet that European nation is a leading exporter and has nearly balanced trade with low-wage China.
"They understand that manufacturing matters," Wessner said.
Kota said Germany's manufacturing support programs focus more on getting products to market and creating jobs than U.S. research priorities that tend to focus on generating the next big idea.
"How do we reconcile investing so much in research and development and having so" few jobs to show for it, Kota asked.
Kota and others advocated public-private investment groups such as Ohio'sThird Frontier program for encouraging more business creation. Griffith touted Magnet, a group that he chairs that offers services similar to Germany's Fraunhofer network but on a much more limited budget, to Northeast Ohio businesses.
Ohio ranks 29th in the nation in having a dynamic innovation sector, said Ross DeVol, executive director of economic research at the Milken Institute think tank. He added that the state has moved up dramatically in the rankings, but it still has too few people with advanced degrees staying in the state.
DeVol said one of the things that needs to change for Ohio to continue moving up the ranks is for people to embrace the idea of taking big risks and working for themselves.
"Throughout the Midwest, there's a legacy of thinking that you should go work for someone else," DeVol said.