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On the Front Line
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Business New Haven
1/8/2001
By: Fiona Phelan
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“Steady as she goes” might be the best way to describe the year 2000 for manufacturers in Connecticut. There were no dramatic increases in sales or employment in this important industry sector. On the other hand - more importantly - there were no large-scale layoffs or plant closures, either.
Indeed, Manufacturing Alliance of Connecticut Executive Director Frank Johnson is pleased with the holding pattern. The most difficult challenge of the past year - one repeated by the manufacturers contacted by Business New Haven - was the need for educated employees.
Centrix Inc.
770 River Road, Shelton 06484
203-929-5582, www.centrixdental.com
Products: Dental equipment and supplies.
Yr. founded: 1970
Chairman: William B. Dragan
President: Mel Drumm
Annual sales range: $10 million-$24 million
No. employees: 100
The next time you're in the dentist's office, be aware that the plastic syringe-like tools used by your doctor may be made right here in Connecticut.
Housed in a 50,000-square-foot facility, Centrix Inc. has been a leading innovator in the field of dentistry for the past 30 years. The company was founded as a means for William B. Dragan to market his dental inventions. In addition to a manufacturing facility, the company also maintains a sales office in Germany.
After many years of selling its products through dealers, Centrix in the early 1990s developed an in-house telephone sales crew to sell its products. However, the company continues to use standard distribution through dental dealers, (at reduced margins) international accounts and OEM customers.
“Our main competition is from companies in Japan, Germany and other parts of the United States,” explains General Manager Bill P. Dragan. “The dental-products industry used to be dominated by smaller companies, but there has been a lot of consolidation over the past few years so there are fewer players in the field.”
Centrix, which Dragan describes as a “medium-sized company” without revealing sales data, has recently brought some of its assembly processes in-house in an attempt at cost savings.
As reported in most segments of the state's economy, Dragan notes that there is a lack of available labor to fill jobs. Centrix is currently looking to expand its current 24-person sales team. Centrix sells directly to dentists, schools and governmental entities.
Custom Bottle
10 Great Hill Road, Naugatuck 06770
203-723-6661, www.bottles.com
Yr. Founded: 1984
President/manufacturing: George Hurden
Owners: Robert Lerman, Barry Lerman, George Hurden
No. employees: 150-plus
“There were ten green bottles hanging on the wall…” Actually, it's more like 250,000 bottles - that's the number of plastic bottles that Custom Bottle of Naugatuck can produce in a day.
Custom Bottle produces bottles for health and beauty giants like Conair, Revlon, Estée Lauder and Zotos, to name a few. The 153 employees and 20 to 30 temporary workers employed on a regular basis operate seven days a week, 24 hours a day. In a unusual initiative established by Custom employees several years ago, workers operate in 12-hour shifts. This allows employees to work three days one week with two days off, and then two days of work the next week with two days off. Employees in the labeling division work a traditional eight hours in three shifts.
The bottles, according to George Hurden, president of manufacturing and one of the company's owners, are distributed nationwide by its sister company, Lerman Container Corp. Lerman employs approximately 25 workers and charts annual sales of between $25 million and $50 million.
According to Hurden, Custom Bottle ranks as the 70th-largest blow molder in North America; that's up from its 100th-place ranking a few years ago. However, Hurden adds, Custom Bottle is still considered a small player in the plastic bottles field.
Like many manufacturers, Hurden notes that his company's biggest challenge is workforce development. However, since recently taking over as president of the Manufacturing Alliance of Connecticut (MAC), Hurden hopes to focus on that issue and bring more development programs to employee-strapped companies like his.
“We spend a considerable amount of time recruiting and retraining employees,” Hurden says. “We are constantly looking for programs that exist that we can develop for ourselves or programs that we can take advantage of.”
According to Hurden, Custom Bottle encourages its employees to take advantage of English as a Second Language (ESL) programs in the community and has sometimes offered such programs on-site. In an interesting twist, several Custom Bottle supervisors are taking Spanish as a Second Language to help them better communicate with employees.
“The factory of yesterday is not what this industry is all about,” explains Hurden. “We have a nice working environment that's clean and we make an effort to stay clean.”
As a member of Connecticut Plastics Council, Hurden hopes to help develop a plastics “cluster” within the state that will offer many benefits to the plastic industry as a whole (similar to the aerospace and biotechnology clusters developed in recent years).
What differentiates Custom Bottle from its competition - both in the U.S. and abroad - is exemplary customer service. One measure of that service is the company's ability - and willingness - to accommodate small orders. According to Hurden, the company will produce as few as 5,000 bottles for a customer - something not a lot of other businesses will handle.
Platt & LaBonia
70 Stoddard Avenue, North Haven 06473
203-239-5681, www.plattlabonia.com
Family owned business: Vincent LaBonia, president; Elizabeth LaBonia, secretary and treasurer
Yr. founded: 1945
No. employees: 50
If you need a metal cabinet to store equipment such as auto parts, medical supplies or tools, then look no further than Platt & LaBonia. For the past 55 years, this North Haven company has been supplying custom sheet metal cabinets, tool boxes and merchandising displays to companies like NAPA, Champion, Dana Corp., Pep Boys, Home Depot and Lowe's to name a few.
Prices for these Craftline cabinets and toolboxes range from $34 for a small toolbox to $340 for a tool cabinet that competes against the widely known Sears Craftsman line. In addition to professional and consumer toolboxes, Platt & LaBonia will create custom cabinets for orders of 250 or more. P&L can paint them any color as well as add any logo or design. Platt & LaBonia can take you through from start to finish - engineering, design, custom paint and graphic application.
According to company secretary, treasurer and co-principal Betty LaBonia, the company recently purchased two fully automated machines to make various parts of cabinets. The flat steel goes in and a folded shape comes out. While the machine does not make the complete cabinet - it still requires that human touch to put together - it saves on labor: a commodity in short supply, says LaBonia. On a regular basis Platt &LaBonia supplements its labor needs through temporary labor agencies.
The company ships its products throughout the U.S. and Canada, says LaBonia.
“The whole custom-cabinet field is competitive,” she adds. “Like many industries, this one has been through mergers and acquisitions where the competition has gotten bigger but with fewer players.”
The key to Platt & LaBonia's success? “Longevity and customer service,” says LaBonia. “We have had many of the same customers for many, many, years. You have to know, and care, about your customers. You have to know how to give them the service they want. The customers and our employees are what make this company successful.”
Much like other manufacturers, LaBonia bemoans the lack of employees, a factor she attributes to the dearth of training institutes in the state. There was a time, notes LaBonia (who recently completed a six-year stint on the MAC board), when the state's technical schools trained electricians, welders and the like but no longer provide that training for young people.
“Young people with an interest in using their hands or learning a trade are at a disadvantage in this state due to the fact that there are not many technical schools where training is offered,” she notes. “We need to do more to educate our young people in various trades.”
Simkins Industries Inc.
260 East Street, New Haven 06511
203-787-7171
Products: Paperboard and folding cartons
CEO: Greg Bohnsack
Yr. founded: Family-owned since 1901
Annual sales: $36 million
(New Haven division)
No. employees: 167
Chances are that cardboard box you put Grandma's Christmas present in was made by Simkins Industries in New Haven.
Each days Simkins goes through 245 tons of paperboard to make garment gift boxes, pizza boxes or any other type of paperboard or folding carton. The company's 385,000-square-foot facility on East Street is home to two paper machines that use approximately 470 barrels of oil a day, according to New Haven Division General Manager Frank Camera.
The operation uses about 120,000 kilowatts per day - 50 percent produced by Simkins and the other half from outside sources - at a daily cost of $18,000, says Camera.
In addition to the New Haven site, Simkins also operates two other paper mills in the U.S. as well as 15 converting mills (where the paperboard is folded into cartons) across the U.S. and Canada. The New Haven division generates sales of approximately $36 million annually.
“The paperboard industry is on the slow side right now,” says Camera, “But that's typical for this time of year.”
With so many gift boxes being imported from Asia, Simkins is seeing a slight slowdown in operations, he explains. Competition is also seen from Mexico where labor and energy costs are much cheaper.
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