Politics

GE touts bright future for lighting sales

IT support worker Andrew Wolfe shows a zebra printer to U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows (left) as GE plant manager Dave Martin looks on.

By Bill Moss, Published: August 6, 2016

EAST FLAT ROCK — How many people does it take to change a light bulb?

One.
How many does it take to change the light bulb industry?
Five-hundred and fifty. They’re working at General Electric’s Lighting Solutions plant in East Flat Rock.
Pete Sessions, the chair of the powerful House Rules Committee, took notice.
The Texas Republican, who represents an area with 7,000 GE employees, was talking to a regional sales rep for General Electric who mentioned a model of innovation at the GE plant in East Flat Rock.
Passing through the mountains, Sessions decided to check it out. Sessions, an early supporter of Donald Trump, was en route to Winston-Salem for a Trump rally that night. He invited U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows to join him for the GE tour.

What the congressmen saw was an American factory that is growing its product line through technology and adding jobs. The GE plant, which has about 550 employees, has added 100 in the past two years, and brought on 15 just in the past two weeks, plant manager Dave Martin told Sessions and Meadows. GE has invested $60 million in the East Flat Rock plant since 2011 and plans to invest another $10 million in the next year, Martin said. The key to growth has been technological advancement and manufacturing agility that guarantees on-demand delivery.
GE Lighting has evolved from a maker of light bulbs to a multidimensional energy management company, Martin said. If it sells a shopping mall a parking lot lighting package, the mall might buy solar- and battery-powered lighting, security lighting, timers and the software to manage it all.
The local plant’s assembly lines have been updated, too. “Collaborative robots work alongside humans,” Martin said. “If it goes to hit something like yourself it stops. I think it even says ‘sorry’ when it touches you.”
Sessions praised the company’s inventiveness.
“You’ve come back and said ‘We’re going to retool for the future and it’s going to be here in North Carolina,’” he said. “That’s a great story. You didn’t get lost in the new world. You’re at the epicenter now. … This is why I came today. To hear the story. This is about America.”
There’s room to grow, too. There are 60 million roadway lights in America.
“Twenty million of them are GE,” said David George, a senior manufacturing engineer, “and every single one was made here in this factory.”
“I’ve been here since 1996,” he added. “This is as bright a future as I’ve ever seen.”