CEO Chris Metz and President Scott Baxter said in a telephone interview that the McHenry, Ill., company researched and came up with the new name to better illustrate the firm's comprehensive product-development services.

"We put a lot of time and effort in coming up with the name and we believe that it is something represents innovation and design," Baxter said.

Metz said the rebranding showcases its abilities to do front-end research, industrial design, prototyping, testing and manufacturing.

He also pointed to the company's new tagline -- "Manufacturing Ideas" -- as showing its commitment to producing ideas and then helping bring them to life.

It also has added a new website, www.novationindustries.com, and added new corporate logo that contains the "N" from Novation, the color green to represent innovation and change, along with a deep grey to represent industry and manufacturing.

Metz said that the company wanted to emphasize its abilities to work with customers with the innovation and design stages, and to help them to bring the concept to market. It specializes in industrial design, injection molding and sourcing, contract manufacturing and logistics.

The company was started in 1967 by the late Bill Metz and operates in a 70,000-square-foot facility. It has 37 injection molding machines, and recently added a 715 ton Netstal press, as well as 150- and 400-ton Toyo presses.