Ferriot's 90-year story of reinvention

Akron, Ohio — If you geek out over cool old plastic parts, Ferriot Inc. is worth a visit.

The lobby display cases are packed with parts molded in the past seven decades, but they tell only a fraction of the story. Ferriot's full history could fill a museum.

Remember hobby horses on bouncing springs? Green army men? Early "Star Wars" toys? Ferriot molded — or made the tools for — all of them.

Ferriot also molded big television cabinets back when TVs were real pieces of furniture, not just oversized computer screens.

"Over the years, I think what's really kept the company in the mainstream and relevant is the fact that it's forced to reinvent itself every so often," Craig Ferriot said in a recent interview at the plant.

"We have continued to be innovative, and take the ideas of the past ownership and build on those, and take the original principles of our founding fathers, which was to develop relationships with customers, and how valuable that is," he said.

He's the president of Ferriot Inc., a family-owned injection molder in Akron. The company is 90 years old, but he's just the third generation of Ferriots in the business.

Craig Ferriot's grandfather was one of the founders in 1929. By 1934, then known as Ferriot Bros. Inc., the company had patented a process for using beryllium copper to produce castings of microscopic detail and dimension.

The company's toy industry roots started in rubber. "We did things like rubber figurines for Walt Disney. The original Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse toys for Walt Disney," Ferriot said.

By 1940, it was using the beryllium copper process to make tooling for plastic injection molders. Then the business was interrupted during World War II, when the company shifted to making gas masks and bullet casing molds for the government. After the war, the company jumped back into injection mold tooling.

"We started in injection molding in about 1947," he said. "We actually built our own injection molding machines for a short period of time; that was kind of unique."

Another big step came in the 1965, when the company noticed that some customers needed value-added services like painting. So it added a finishing operation.

"That led us to more customers. We developed relationships with some very large Fortune 500 and Fortune 1,000 companies, like IBM and Apple. We actually started with IBM in the mid-70s and began development with them on a personal computer — the first personal computer."

Ferriot, 61, came back to the family business in 1986 after a six-year stint at injection press maker Van Dorn Co. in Strongsville, Ohio.

"And my first project at Ferriot was working with IBM Boca Raton and development of the personal computer. I was thrown into the fire, so to speak, and developing tools for that marketplace, which is pretty interesting. I learned a lot."

He always thought he'd be part of the family business.

"I enjoyed early on making things, and I wanted to go to work with my dad. As a young person, I enjoyed seeing what he did. And making toys, you know, every kid's interested in toys."

When he joined the company, sales were split about 50-50 between toys and business machines. By 1994, Ferriot added a rapid prototyping division. That decision was part of the family's strategy, to be on the cutting edge of offering important value-added services to customers.

"And that's really the basis on the company today; we want to sell ourselves as a one-stop shop where we can manage the entire supply chain to the customer," Ferriot said.

The story of reinventing Ferriot Inc. continues today. In 2008, it introduced a proprietary injection molded product, an architectural shake-shingle siding for the construction industry. The company sells siding through a wholly owned subsidiary, American Original Building Products LLC. Siding now accounts for about 30 percent of Ferriot's sales.

"We thought, how do we sustain the business? How do we evolve? How do we control at least part of our own destiny? And that's why we started the shingle business," he said.

The high-end shingles look like wood but are made from a durable polypropylene composite. They feature deep shadow lines and patented easy-to-assemble features. Ferriot said the company is currently No. 4 in the U.S. shake and scallop siding market.

"We are seeing growth, both in the United States and Canada. And that's happening through a lot of different avenues, but primarily through private label," making product for vinyl siding companies, he said.

Today Ferriot Inc. is owned by the descendants of the three brothers who started the company in 1929. There are about 20 shareholders. Four family members work at the company.

"The advantages of being part of a family business are we're building a culture of family and trust and longevity," Ferriot said. "Sometimes there are differences of opinions, in terms of the direction the business should go. But that's the reason we have a board of directors, because you need a variety of opinions, because I think it brings out better ideas. So that's a positive."

Current challenges are attracting, retaining and training staff, taking care of customers, all while looking out for shareholders.

"That's probably the thing that keeps me up all night. You've got to work, really, in all aspects of that business; you cannot be complacent on any one aspect, if you're going to succeed in manufacturing.

"I mean, we have a 90-year history; we're responsible for it. And if you take your eye off the ball on one of the things, and it could screw it up, right?"

Ferriot thinks of the company like a regional contract manufacturer — like Flextronics, but on a smaller scale.

"We offer a lot of the same services, we're managing large supply chains, enabling our customer one point of contact to make it easier to do business," he said. "And we're also building out our engineering department to try to become a solutions provider. So we're looking for specific pain points within customers: How can we help them solve their problems, everyday problems? What is creating the most pain for them? And we're bringing solutions to those pain points.

"We've been fortunate in growing our engineering base, from quality engineers to manufacturing engineers, our process engineers, mechanical engineers, design engineers, tooling engineers, project engineers," Ferriot said. "We probably have more resources at our disposal on the engineering side than most companies our size."

Ferriot currently has 22 injection molding machines in its 200,000-square-foot plant, including a 2,250-ton Negri Bossi Bi-Power press installed last year. The company has more than 150 employees and estimated sales of $30 million.

The company started a year-long celebration of its 90-year history with a special event for employees at its Akron headquarters in June. Next month the anniversary will continue with a community outreach event on Manufacturing Day.