Intek Plastics intends to preserve a management function in its middle fenestration enterprise. At the same time, it’s on assignment to leverage its expertise in materials understanding, engineering, technology, and customer collaboration to emerge as a force in different profile extrusion markets as well.
If you’re in the profile extrusion commercial enterprise and awareness at the window and door market, you’re pretty lots riding the ebbs and flows of the construction industry. That wasn’t an enviable role to be in in the course of the economic disaster of 2008-2009, when the development bubble burst, so Intek Plastics is doing something to save you from a recurrence. In a word: diversify. Based in Hastings, Minn., Intek is taking its nearly 60 years’ worth of know-how in developing custom-designed window and door profiles to new markets, not with “me-too” extrusions, however, with products evolved in collaboration with customers to offer new solutions in lighting, refrigeration, energy management, and more.
Intek has been in business on the grounds that 1961. It continues to be a privately held, family-owned company, with second- and third-generation family contributors now in ownership positions. Its roots are within the fenestration market, and it has no plans to abandon that role. Instead, Intek is leveraging its expertise in materials, engineering, technology, and old-style sit-downs with customers to pressure innovation in additional markets.
Notes CEO Jill Hesselroth, “An essential initiative for us now is to diversify into different markets. That does not imply we should veer from our center, but it does imply our portfolio ought to be greater balanced. There is no such component as a ‘mature marketplace’ where we assume we are able to just sit back and watch income roll in. Even in a marketplace in which we’ve got a dominant position, we keep putting money into R&D with our main clients to explore the capacity of the latest substances and work with clients aspect-by using-aspect through their product-improvement cycles to bring new merchandise to market. This calls for a non-stop commitment to strategic consumer relationships, R&D, and shipping of terrific products sponsored through exquisite provider.”
Intek has staffed up for this marketplace growth: It introduced Paul Pedersen as VP of income and advertising in 2017. About a 12 months in the past, it employed Lee Johnson as enterprise development and market manager for lighting, signaling the organization’s robust commitment to becoming a chief player in customized profiles for the burgeoning LED marketplace.
While Intek’s boom in new markets figures to be organic, it has made a few acquisitions to speed up the process. In 2008, it obtained Elite Plastics, Hawthorne, N.J., a profile extruder that centered on the point-of-purchase (POP) marketplace. Last year, Intek sold the consumer belongings and manufacturing tooling of Hall Manufacturing Corp., Ringwood, N.J. Says Hesselroth, “Hall’s business was much less than 50% in POP, so with this buy we have been seeking to diversify in Hawthorne.”
At first blush, it would appear uncommon that a processor with a long record in windows and doors—usually taken into consideration a high-end commercial enterprise in which the same products are made all day, every day—might also be in a position to reflect on diversification, but Intek’s enterprise has usually been simply custom. Within the center fenestration commercial enterprise, it does no longer have its own line of merchandise, however, as an alternative tackles the forte tasks that its clients are not geared to run themselves. Explains Rick Zeien, director of operations, “In fenestration, all of our production is for essential window and door producers. But these are custom, challenging profiles that the client can’t run at the amazing-high volumes they may be installing for, and that’s where we fit in. ”
