While conventional wisdom has it that value pricing must always come at the expense of premium quality, it’s reassuring to know there are companies out there that thrive and prosper by defying established industry wisdoms and conventions.
Operating out of a lively, 20,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Vaudreuil, Que., Consolidated Technologies Inc. provides a compelling example of a progressive business enterprise that simply refuses to believe in trade-offs or compromises of any sort when it comes to doing a good job for its customers.
Founded in 1982, the 35-employee OEM (original equipment manufacturer) of cartoning and case-packing machinery has enjoyed 50-percent growth in its business over the last three years, according to the company’s project manager Kevin D’Amato, nearly reaching the vaunted $10-million sales threshold last year.
According to D’Amato, the surge in the company’s sales in the U.S., Canadian and Mexican markets traces back to the late 1990s, when the former custom automation systems provider decided to leverage its acquired knowledge of automated packaging systems to begin manufacturing its own range of packaging equipment.
“Being able to manufacture equipment that was customized, we learned how to not only build packaging equipment, but how to integrate it,” sales manager Christian Lapointe told Canadian Packaging in a recent interview.
“Having that knowledge gave us a big advantage when we became an OEM”.
Adds D’Amato: “We know that cost is always going to be an important consideration of the equipment selection process—even with the constant requirements for higher outputs, increased efficiencies and reduced downtime necessitating the need for well-engineered, well-built equipment.
“But why not have both?”, he exclaims. “Why not build a well-engineered, innovative and reliable piece of equipment that combines the latest technologies with stainless-steel construction at a cost of comparable mild-steel equipment?”
These days, the privately-owned OEM manufactures three types of vertical and horizontal cartoners, including the HC120 manual-load models; HC 3200 servo-driven systems with auto indexing; and the continuous-motion HC4100 —as well as the SCF20-L series manual-load or robotic case-packers; manual-load or fully-automatic UC120 sleevers; an one-off, custom-made palletizers.
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