The Forum - 10/15/2003

Alien breaks ground for mass-scale plant

Alien Technology Corp. already supplies so-called "smart tags" to the Gillette Co. and the United Kingdom's largest retailer, Tesco.

Now, add another major potential customer to the list: the U.S. Department of Defense.

Monday, Alien broke ground in Fargo on a mass-scale manufacturing plant -- believed to be the first of its kind -- on the heels of an Oct. 2 Department of Defense memo requiring all of its suppliers to use radio-frequency identification tags by January 2005.

The mandate should be a boon to Alien, ramping up production in part because of a similar edict from Wal-Mart.

"That's great news for Fargo, because those tags will be made here and shipped to the suppliers that send these to Wal-Mart and the Defense Department," Alien CEO Stav Prodromou said during Monday's groundbreaking.

The 47,250-square-foot plant at 1700 18th St. N. is expected to employ 300 people after it opens in 2005.

The facility will house one of Alien's patented fluidic self-assembly lines, capable of producing 10 billion radio-frequency identification tags per year. Alien now operates a much smaller version of the production line at company headquarters in Morgan Hill, Calif.

Atlanta-based Manhattan Associates invests in Alien because it believes the company's patented Fluidic Self-Assembly process is the cheapest method of producing smart tags in the long run, vice president John Kresky said.

"Having that manufacturing process will enable them to supply the bulk of the buy," Kresky said, adding 1,500 of Manhattan Associates' customers are Wal-Mart suppliers.

About 280 people attended Monday's ceremony in the North Dakota State University Research and Technology Park.

State and local leaders praised the Alien project as a prime example of the college and corporate worlds working together to boost the economy.

"We're working very hard in North Dakota to combine education with economic development to create higher-paying jobs," Gov. John Hoeven said. "That's absolutely what's happening with Alien Technology."

A consortium of state and local banks and economic development agencies put together a $36 million financing package for Alien.

"North Dakota's business leaders showed us the kind of business-friendly attitude that convinced us we will succeed here," Prodromou said.

U.S. Sen. Byron Dorgan, who first connected Alien with NDSU by securing a federal research contract, said he hopes business, industries and jobs will congregate around their joint research.

"It is my hope that this is just the first shovelful of dirt," he said.

The research park is home to Phoenix International, NDSU's Research I building and the Research II building, which will house the Center for Nanoscale Science and Engineering when completed next spring. A 40,000-square-foot technology incubator building is the next project planned.

Tony Grindberg, executive director of the research park, said the Alien project "energizes us in a way that gets people's attention who would have never given Fargo the time of day."

NDSU President Joseph Chapman said, "This facility's going to bring us national and international prominence."

Prodromou also announced Alien will sponsor three NDSU faculty fellowships to support research in engineering, science and business technologies related to radio-frequency identification tags.

Readers can reach Forum reporter Mike Nowatzki at (701) 241-5528