Vanguard Plastics has adopted Baxter as a way to boost productivity

Southington, Conn. — Three Baxter collaborative robots toil away at Vanguard Plastics Corp., a small custom molder.

A fourth Baxter is set aside from production, reserved instead for employee training.

President Chris Budnick said the Baxters have helped improve productivity at the molder, which runs 21 injection molding machines and generates about $7 million in annual sales.

Vanguard Plastics employs 42 people at its plant in Southington. The company is family owned, which is obvious when you drive into the small parking lot and see the vegetable gardens, their yields shared with employees. If Budnick has a particularly stressful day, he sometimes goes out and pulls weeds.

"A factory our size in China would have over 100 people. That's the bottom line. That's how we can compete. We have less people, or if you want to look at it another way, we're twice as productive. And we're profitable and we're not moving to Mexico or threatening to move to Mexico. We're staying in New England," he said.

Baxter robots have an expressive computer-screen "face," ​ making the two-armed robots from Rethink Robotics Inc. familiar even to non-technical people. The robots are collaborative, meaning they can work side-by-side with an employee and do not need safety guarding.

Baxter robots can handle a payload up to 5 pounds, and they move in a deliberate fashion. They are no match for the speedy Wittmann robots zipping back and forth over the presses at Vanguard's molding factory. Instead, they perform tasks like handling a steering column assembly — two molded parts that are first put together by an employee. The Baxter robot moves the parts past a vision inspection system where three cameras check 13 different quality aspects on the automotive part.

The Boston-based Rethink Robotics launched the Baxter robot in 2012. The following year, Vanguard became one of the first injection molding companies to buy one. Budnick said the second and third Baxters came after that, a year apart.

Vanguard bought the fourth one earlier this year. During a plant visit, the wheeled robot sat off to the side, unplugged, waiting to be used for training.

Baxter is priced in the mid-$20,000s range, so they are not a huge investment to try out, Budnick said.

One of the company's Baxters methodically stacked single-use medicine cups and dropped them into a bagging machine.

"Baxter's been a huge help. He's helped drive our productivity," Budnick said.

The robot business is hot. The North American robot market broke all-time records in 2016, as companies ordered 34,606 robots valued at nearly $2 billion, according to the Robotic Industries Association. Manufacturing officials and economists say automation is a way to improve efficiency and compensate for America's skilled worker shortage. Budnick said Vanguard already runs lean, so its robots help with productivity and are not designed to replace human workers.

"We're selling product at 1990s price structures, because that's what we have to do, or the ax comes down and the jobs go to Mexico or China. I mean, that's just the bottom line," Budnick said. "So do you like to do that? No. But you have to figure out ways to do that … And I don't care what anybody tells you about loyalty, and vendor blah-blah-blah. And partnerships. It's all nonsense. It really ends up about the price. So if we can't have a competitive price, they'll go find another place on the planet to do it. Regardless of what issues they might have logistically or quality issues."

Budnick said his father, Lawrence Budnick Jr., who founded Vanguard Plastics in 1972 with a single injection press and remains active as chairman and CEO, has always been open to trying new things and tweaking operations. Company officials have been charting productivity growth since the early 1990s and work to improve it every year, he said.

The Budnicks have taken a two-pronged approach to face the future. Automation helps. And now the custom molder has its own product lines, after buying two companies in 2014 making floral supplies and food service products.

"We have our own proprietary products, so we climb up the value chain," Chris Budnick said. Vanguard is investing in both businesses to refresh their products.

Vanguard is leasing 12,500 square feet of warehouse space down the street in its industrial park to accommodate its growth.

And Vanguard's adoption of the Baxter robots has won international attention, showing how a small U.S. manufacturer can take the plunge with something new. TV news teams from Japan, Germany and Sweden have visited the factory in Southington. CNBC has come out several times, once interviewing Lawrence Budnick for a live broadcast. Even the Wall Street Journal called.