MB Kit framing $1.2M expansion plan

By David Bennett
August 01. 2005 6:01AM

MB Kit Systems Ltd. of Akron is planning an expansion that will nearly double the size of its production plant to meet growing demand for its industrial framing product.

The 30-employee company designs and produces customized aluminum framing for various manufacturing applications in place of welded steel frames. The expandable, linear motion systems - marketed under the "Item" trade name - enable industrial clients to arrange and connect driver control, robotic and production components for automated assembly lines.

Eveline Nordhauss, MB Kit president, said more demand from aerospace and industrial customers for the company’s lightweight frames, ball screws and other products will enable the company to expand to 45,000 square feet its 25,000-square-foot headquarters and production plant at 925 Glaser Parkway.

The $1.2 million expansion should start this fall and be completed in early 2006, Ms. Nordhauss said. The company expects to add at least five jobs next year.

Richard Sabo, vice president of sales and marketing for MB Kit, said that while the company is known in certain industrial circles, it’s seeking broader awareness of its name. To accomplish that goal, MB Kit has produced a 22-minute DVD about its products that the company’s 165 sales representatives can show to prospective clients. Mr. Sabo said the effort is generating additional business on the West Coast, which a year ago was virtually untapped.

MB Kit had sales in 2004 under $20M, Ms. Nordhauss said, and it expects significant growth in the next few years. Ms. Nordhauss said the company should see a 25% spike in revenue this year.

The company’s technology is an offshoot from the collaboration of MB Kit and a German distributor, Industrietechnik und Maschinenbau GmbH. Industrietechnik provides the Akron company with extruded materials that are styled in MB Kit’s Glaser Parkway plant to meet each customer’s order, which in many cases can appear as "a big erector set," Mr. Sabo said.

"What we do better than anyone in this industry is engineer," Mr. Sabo said.

Since the company’s formation in 1997, it has compiled an extensive client list including automakers of Audi, Honda, Porsche and Toyota. Other high-profile customers include France’s Airbus, NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., and Sony Corp.

Locally, wheelchair manufacturer Invacare Corp. of Elyria, Nutro Corp. of Strongsville, a maker of automated painting machines, and The Perfect Score Co., a Bedford Heights designer and manufacturer of baking equipment, are using some kind of configuration of MB Kit’s product.

MB Kit can accommodate small companies as well as large. A case

in point is Fused Multimodality Imaging Inc., a Solon startup that makes medical imaging products.

Bill McCrosky, president of the imaging company, last November enlisted MB Kit to help engineer and fabricate a motion control table that he said is part of an imaging device for detecting breast cancer " at the molecular level. Still a clinical prototype, the device

was developed in part of MB Kit engineers.

"They significantly contributed to the process," Mr. McCrosky said.

Whether it’s table size or a big framing job such as the order MB Kit placed at a Porsche assembly plant in Stuttgart, Germany, Ms. Nordhauss said the company continues grab a larger share of the $200 million a year market.

"The potential is just unbelievable," she said.