Page 38 - BusinessWest March 18, 2024

Randy Ames, center, and a large delegation of local, state, and business leaders gathered at the company’s facility in Deerfield last summer for the NACHI Robot Roundup.
the equipment he installs all but shut down.
Today, Ames boasts clients in a wide range of sectors, from breweries to plastics; food and beverage to paper; recreation (think ski lifts) to municipal water and wastewater facilities. Indeed, the company designs electrical hard- ware and software control systems
for companies that make everything from golf balls to Play-Doh to ketchup bottles.
“We’re the automation guys,” Ames said simply, adding that, over the
years, the company has enjoyed steady growth while expanding and diversify- ing its portfolio of customers, which it provides with turnkey operations.
The next chapter for Ames, and a big reason behind its move to larger quarters, involves the growing, ever- changing world of robotics.
The company has become New Eng- land’s only authorized distributor and integrator of NACHI Robotics Systems, said Ames, adding that, as manufac- turers and machine shops across the region and throughout the Northeast
continue to struggle to attract and retain employees, more of these companies are increasingly looking to robots and cobots (‘collaborative robots’ that work together with peo- ple) as a solution.
“I made four phone calls that day, and three people called me back.”
“Manufacturers can’t find people to work — and it’s not just manufactur- ers, it’s everyone,” said Ames, adding that his company is now primed and well-positioned to take full advantage of this technology and what it can do for companies.
It was this next chapter and what it might it might mean for the company and the region that drew business leaders and elected officials — more people than had come to his door in decades — to the office on Greenfield Street last summer for what was dubbed the NACHI Robot Roundup.
At that gathering, attendees got a good look into the future — of manu- facturing, Ames Electrical, and, in many respects, the region.
For this issue and its focus on Franklin County, BusinessWest takes an in-depth look at Ames and what comes next for a company where suc- cess hasn’t come automatically, but through entrepreneurial energy and a willingness to keep current — figura- tively, but also quite literally.
Watt’s Happening?
Ames joked early and often about the acronyms that dominate his business.
There are many of them — from PLCs (programmable logic controls), which are small devices, “the heart of automation,” as Ames called them, that can be programmed to turn things on and off; to HMIs (human- machine interfaces), the operators’ touchscreens; and even RAT (remote access technology), which provides a secure, cloud-based IT network that
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Ames
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34 MARCH 18, 2024
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