CHICAGO — Dynisco Inc. is a company in transition.
A new leader guides managers through market- and customer-driven strategies as the plastics equipment maker plans for internal growth, alliances and acquisitions.
In addition, Richard F. Paolino said he expects more partnering with customers on new processes and products and more visibility for ``Dynisco family companies on the world markets,'' particularly in the Asia-Pacific region.
Paolino joined Dynisco in February as president and chief executive officer. He has extensive corporate business planning experience, a bachelor's degree in engineering science from Dartmouth College and a master's in business from the University of Chicago.
Sharon, Mass.-based Dynisco makes measurement and control systems, hot runners, gear pumps and screen changers. Plastics applications account for about 80 percent of Dynisco's sales of more than $90 million a year.
``We'll not expand universally,'' Paolino said at NPE 1997, held June 16-20 in Chicago.
But indications point to penetration of the Chinese market, he added. A Hong Kong business analyst has completed a preliminary report for the firm on opportunities for the measurement and control business.
Paolino plans to boost support for Dynisco's representation in Mexico serving the automotive industry and to push into South America, particularly Brazil — and perhaps into Australia, New Zealand and Singapore, he said.
Dynisco's 12 informal profit centers, within five product groups, have been running through drills to spur market-development efforts.
Subsidiary leaders and a trim corporate management team met June 24-25 for a day and a half of planning to help them choose, by August, a strategic approach to product development and market identification.
``Our goal is to select opportunities and strategic alternatives,'' Paolino said.
The exercises constitute a philosophical departure from prior company practices and will continue into the development of second-and third-year plans. The goal: ``Double sales by the year 2000,'' the CEO said.
On April 8, Dynisco announced the acquisition of Eurotool Operations BV, based in Gravendeel, the Netherlands, which has German manufacturing sites in Heilbronn and Bensheim.
The purchase expanded the firm's hot-runner business geographically, with minimum market overlap. Eurotool generates about 90 percent of its sales in Europe. Dynisco's Kona hot-runner subsidiary in Gloucester, Mass., garners roughly 90 percent of its sales in the United States.
Paolino calls for ``more cross-pollination between units, especially in the hot-runner business.''
Eurotool and Kona each employ about 200 of Dynisco's total work force of 700. Both are retaining headquarter operations.
Automotive applications make up about 30 percent of each hot-runner unit's total sales.
Dynisco is the acknowledged market leader in melt-pressure measurement equipment for extrusion processes, and a major supplier of hydraulic systems for molding machines. The hydraulics face more competition in nonplastics markets such as automotive testing equipment and test stands.
Though the subsidiaries' approaches can overlap, ``each of our companies supplies common customers but not common accounts,'' Paolino said.
Dynisco facilities occupy about 120,000 square feet in Sharon and Gloucester, Mass.; Morgantown, Pa.; Hickory, N.C.; the Netherlands and Germany.
