May~June 2012 Centerfold Mike Eggleston and Eric Hinton G E Hea l t h care
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fter earning a mechanical engineering degree from and ships from the site to customers around the globe. The MRI machines produced by GE Healthcare’s Florence facility rely Virginia Tech, Eggleston spent 12 years with GE’s Global Research Center in New York before joining on a superconductor made up of a niobium-titanium alloy that’s inside a GE Healthcare in 1997. Under his leadership as plant matrix of copper. That wire gets wound onto structures that are built into a manager, the Florence plant has thrived, producing cryostat, which is essentially an extremely high-performance thermos. The magnet sits in a container of liquid helium, which is at 4.2 Kelvin or about about 900 MRI machines a year. This June, Eggleston will move to China, where the minus 450 degrees Fahrenheit. The cryostat enables the magnet’s wire to MRI market is growing significantly. Over the past five years, the number of be kept in a bath of liquid helium in order to sustain superconductivity. The products shipped out of Florence to China has more than tripled. Eggleston Florence plant makes four basic models that weigh five to 10 tons each. Given the numerous patients who depend on GE Healthcare’s finished will help improve GE’s distribution process in China, where partially built products will be shipped for final assembly and testing. Eggleston, who products, a thorough process requires each magnet to be tested for seven will stay in close communications with a team at the Florence plant, will to 10 days. The costs of establishing medical facilities with MRI machines are high, so customers like South Carolina hospitals expect the magnet help transfer this knowledge. “It’s about cost, but it’s more about responsiveness to customers and to operate for at least 10 years. In addition to having a big impact on the lives of millions of patients, the marketplace,” said Eggleston. Hinton is the new plant manager of the Florence facility, bringing GE Healthcare has also had a substantial economic impact in the Florence with him many years of experience as a design engineer. The aerospace area. “We’re constantly hiring new employees. That reflects both the engineering major has spent most of his career with GE Aviation in various engine assembly and plant leader roles. The shift from GE Aviation to GE growth of the MRI market and retirements. We have a lot of employees Healthcare isn’t unusual in the GE corporate structure, as the company who came to us in 1972, so as long-term employees retire, we’re looking to hire new people in the community,” said constantly shares technology, best practices Eggleston. and staff between divisions. Joe King, executive director of the “With GE’s Global Research Center, Florence County Economic Development we’re developing technologies and sharing Partnership, said, “We always tout our them across businesses. We also crossexisting industry that we have in the pollinate businesses where technologies county when we’re trying to recruit new might apply. For instance, there might businesses. One of the first businesses we be some things we do with welding talk about is GE. It’s an iconic name. They technology in GE Aviation that we share pay high wages and attract a high-end with GE Healthcare and GE Energy. Then, workforce.” you have some manufacturing technologies GE Healthcare is also heavily involved that you can leverage,” said Hinton. in the Florence community, providing A prime example of this corporate programs for local students, helping synergy exists in GE Energy’s next generation improve infrastructure of schools wind turbines, which use GE Healthcare’s and working with non-profit health MRI technology. GE researchers determined organizations like the Mercy Medicine that wind turbines can use superconducting Clinic, which provides medical care to magnets just like MRI machines. The residents of Florence and Dillon Counties discovery led to GE researchers getting a who would not otherwise receive it. GE $3 million Department of Energy grant to Healthcare also has an internship program develop wind turbine generators that use with Florence-Darlington Technical College superconducting magnets. where students work 20 hours a week GE Healthcare’s Florence plant was at the plant. Some of these interns are established in 1972 as a mobile radio eventually hired for full-time employment manufacturing plant. When GE got involved at the plant. in MRI technology in the mid-80s, the plant Heyward Matthews performs final touch-up welding. Despite all that GE Healthcare has was converted into a GE Healthcare facility. GE Healthcare’s MRI business is based in Milwaukee, where systems and done for the Pee Dee and South Carolina as a whole, the Florence software are designed. The Florence plant is responsible for the hardware plant is just one small portion of the company’s impact on health