Vacuum firm cleaning up
Philadelphia Business Journal - by Adam Stone Special To The Business Journal
MALVERN -- What do the space shuttle, the Anthrax-riddled postal system, a pharmaceutical manufacturing plant and an industrial pizza maker have in common?
Each needs a really thorough vacuum -- something powerful and precise enough to suck up sand and microbes, airborne dust and microscopic food particles.
Meeting that need in each of these cases: Nilfisk-Advance America Inc., the Malvern-based subsidiary of Danish concern Nilfisk-Advance A/S.
After several years of steady growth, the company's revenues leveled out from 2000 to 2001 because of the tech-sector slowdown. But Nilfisk-Advance America saw a growth spurt at the end of last year in the wake of Sept. 11 events, when the government called on it to provide asbestos-cleanup machines at Ground Zero in New York City, along with anthrax-sucking equipment for use by the postal system.
"Every now and then you get an opportunity to do something you never would have thought of ahead of time," said Bob Magdelain, president of the 52-person business.
While unexpected, the disaster-cleanup work did not come as a complete surprise. For more than a decade the company has been supplying the post office with vacuums to take up asbestos and lead-based paint, "so we were one of the natural choices," Magdelain said. "When the anthrax scare become a reality they contacted us immediately and asked us to give a presentation to their environmental people, which we did, and that has resulted in some very significant orders."
Magdelain's operation is not the only game in town, but industry insiders say it stands in a class by itself.
A dozen or more firms sell industrial vacuums nationwide, but most of them are hawking janitorial machines: Good enough to clean a floor, but not sophisticated enough to scour the space-shuttle cargo bay.
"If you are looking for a unit that is not huge in size but can give you the same high-end capabilities, (Nilfisk-Advance America) is the ideal way to go," said Nicholas Grieco, manager of engineering, maintenance and packaging at Lannett Co. Inc., a Philadelphia-based pharmaceutical manufacturing and packaging operation.
In addition to quality machines, which can range from $1,000 to $39,000 in price, Nilfisk-Advance has earned a reputation for service. "I can get a salesman in here in no more than two days," said Grieco. "With other vendors, you often have to wait quite a while, and they often are not as knowledgeable about what your needs are. The sales force with (Nilfisk-Advance) seems to really understand my needs, and they will give me a lot of options as to how to get that need met."
If so, it is no coincidence. Magdelain puts a premium on training and education for his 20-person sales force.
"We are continually training our salespeople to become expert in those fields," he said. "In pharmaceuticals, for example, if you are going to be selling equipment (to clean) tablet presses, you can't really sell them very well if your sales force does not know the kinds of equipment that the pharmaceutical packaging companies are using."
To meet the need for ongoing training, Magdelain invites industry experts in to tour his facilities and speak with his salespeople. He also sends his people out to trade shows and encourages them to take part in educational programming related to a variety of industries.
"In the food business, for example, you have all kinds of powdery dust," he said. "In a pizza facility you have corn flour and other things, and if you don't get those things up and away, you will get mold growing and consumers will get ill. So hygiene is extremely important in these settings, and yet these finely powdered materials will clog ordinary vacuums in a second. They need something more specialized."
Armed with inside knowledge, Magdelain's sales force often is able to offer innovative solutions. Take for example the experience of Joe Miller, assistant director of occupational health and safety at the University of Delaware, and also a certified industrial hygienist.
When the school's conservation department was kicking up a lot of dust in classrooms where students worked with plaster and wood, the school's internal engineering staff proposed a rather complex and pricey solution, Miller said.
Rather than take that route, "I worked with a Nilfisk representative to come up with an attachable arm that would hold the vacuum hose from their system and put it right at the source of the contaminant generation. It turned out to be a very workable system and it cost a lot less than the proposed in-house system," Miller said. "They took the time to come in and look at the situation, and then came back with really sound proposals."
Magdelain plans to continue the company's steady growth by providing his vacuum solutions for a more diverse range of industries. In the meantime, though, he must contend with an ongoing supply-chain problem that has long plagued his efforts.
"In the case of two of our principal suppliers, one is Danish and the other is Italian, and there is a certain lag time getting product across the Atlantic," he said. "In some cases it takes eight to 10 weeks to get a machine by special order, even though it only takes a couple of days to build it."
To bridge the gap, Magdelain tries to keep a strong inventory of popular models, and also employs six technicians to customize devices as needed. Still, the delay in overseas shipping remains a sticking point that he has not yet been able to resolve to his own satisfaction.
"We'd like to be able to deliver from inventory more of the time, but that creates a cash-flow situation," he said. "You can really tie up a tremendous amount of money in inventory, and while our cash flow is very strong, this still is just one of those awkward business things that is not easy to solve."
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