Mold Standard
Acquisitions provide room for freeman's talent to grow.
By acquiring its first international company in August 2007, Freeman Manufacturing & Supply Co. became the largest distributor of urethane and epoxy tooling material in both the United States and Canada.
The acquisition of the distribution company based in St. Laurent, Quebec, bolstered the Avon company's already impressive growth in jobs and sales.
"We've grown 50 percent in sales the last six years," says Matthew Turco, vice president of the 85-employee company, which has experienced slightly more than 20 percent job growth during the same period.
"One of the biggest challenges in a small company is keeping really talented people when there are limited opportunities for advancement," he says. "With our acquisitions, not only are we growing our overall business and adding jobs, but we're able to challenge and therefore retain our longtime employees in ways we couldn't beforehand."
Founded in 1902 as a foundry pattern shop in Maumee, Ohio, Freeman Manufacturing & Supply has evolved from reselling foundry supplies to local pattern shops to becoming one of the world's top manufacturers and distributors of what is referred to as soft tooling materials — consisting of urethane, epoxy, wax or silicone.
"Our products are sold into jewelry manufacturing, automotive and aerospace tooling, foundry tooling and prototyping industries," says Turco. "Our products make the models, molds and tools that are then used to make products."
With nine locations in the United States and one in Canada, the company's strength is in its distribution business, which accounts for 80 percent of its sales. "We haven't lasted 106 years by selling the same things to the same people," Turco says. "We know we must adapt to the ongoing challenges of our core industries and evolve to meet the needs of whatever comes next."
— Chrissy Kadleck
Vision Quest
Computer eyes have applied vision looking ahead.
There's a chance that can of Coke on your desk has been inspected by quality-control technology developed in Northeast Ohio.
Applied Vision Corp. is an Akron-based supplier of machine vision inspection equipment that operate much like "computer eyes, trying to do the same thing that human beings do with their eye and brain," says president Amir Novini, who co-founded the company in 1997 with his wife, Manijeh Novini, the company's CFO.
The technology captures a digital image of an object along the manufacturing process that is analyzed by several million lines of software algorithm code to ensure the product conforms to the manufacture's original standard.
"In our case, the widgets that we look at are mostly in the food and beverage container industry. And what's really neat about it, apart from the fact that it's a technological marvel, is the fact that we are all over the world," Novini says.
More than 50 percent of its products are shipped overseas. "So you'll find us in China, Vietnam, India, Germany, Britain," he adds, "anywhere you would go on the globe where there is a need for making a container and ensuring the quality of the product is of high integrity and the product appearance is intact."
A $20 million company, Applied Vision experienced record sales growth in 2007, increasing 48 percent over the previous year and capping off a 260 percent spurt over five years. In the past three years, the number of employees has increased 80 percent.
Novini expects to continue this pattern of growth in both sales and jobs and is considering expanding manufacturing and office space at its 33,000-square-foot headquarters, built in 2004.
— CK
Home Court
Mentor's PCC Airfoils expands in nearby Painesville.
When it came time to expand its manufacturing capabilities, PCC Airfoils LLC, of Mentor, didn't have to venture far before landing a deal in Painesville that would bring a new facility of close to $35 million and about 150 new jobs.
The company considered locations in Georgia and Oregon but credited the aggressive efforts of the Ohio Department of Development, Painesville Office of Economic Development, AMP Ohio, the Lake County Economic Development Center, Team NEO and CB Richard Ellis.
"They worked very hard with us to provide incentives for us to do business there, and the city of Painesville worked very well with us to accommodate us and help us meet our deadlines," says Mike Kinney, program manager at PCC Airfoils Mentor. "The Mentor facility will remain in full operation and there is no movement of jobs or movement of capacity in any way. It's totally additional capabilities and capacity driven by demand."
Kinney says the primary factors were the low electric rates offered by the city, the available work force, reasonable land costs and economic incentives offered by the state.
The Painesville facility will become a major supplier of airfoils on large, land-based gas turbines for electrical power generation. Like the Mentor facility, the plant will manufacture primarily industrial gas turbine blades and vanes.
Production at the new facility to be built on 9.84 acres in Painesville's Renaissance Business Park is expected to start in January 2009, and the new jobs will be filled at the end of this year.
PCC Airfoils LLC, a subsidiary of Precision Castparts Corp., has multiple manufacturing sites in the United States, Mexico and England.
"It's a good thing to get manufacturing jobs in Ohio," Kinney says. "It's a big win."
— CK