From sandwich bags to shoes

Rockford engineer with patents enjoys problem-solving

By Alex Gary

BusinessRockford.com

The 13th time was a charm for Nike in its quest to create a machine that would improve quality control in the Asian manufacturing plants where its shoes are put together by hand.

After hiring 12 different companies to come up with a device to measure the girth or circumference of a shoe, Oregon-based Nike, the world’s No. 1 shoemaker, hired consulting firm Bit7 of Madison, Wis.

Among the Bit7 engineers was Rockford’s own Tom Sutrina, a former Hamilton Sundstrand Corp. engineer who spent 20 years and received 25 patents for his work there. Together, the team came up with a machine that solves Nike’s problem.

“If a worker pulls too hard (when testing the quality of the shoe), the shoe’s dimensions will not be exactly right,” Sutrina said. “That’s why you should always try on both the left and right shoe. The dimensions vary. Our machine correctly measures the part of the shoe right after the toes.”

Since the Nike project, which was patented in March, Sutrina, 58, has moved on. He is now a product development engineer for Medela Inc. of McHenry, the U.S. arm of Swiss breast pump maker Medela Holding AG. Sutrina said he has more patents pending on upcoming improvements to home-use breast pumps.

“Basically, I’ve worked for companies that gave me problems to solve,” said Sutrina, who is involved in Rockford Area Ventures Club and part of a focus group that tries to help inventors. “As you work the problem and come up with solutions, you make discoveries that lead to patents.”

Reach Assistant Business Editor Alex Gary at agary@rrstar.com.

Pick up weekly magazine BusinessRockford.com for more on patents versus trade secrets. Depending on the industry, companies don’t automatically go for patent protection on critical discoveries. Some companies, such as Thermo Fisher Scientific and Hamilton Sundstrand Corp., keep new discoveries to themselves as trade secrets.

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