Creating the Components of Success

Newcomerstown, OH-based Creative Custom Components achieves triple-digit growth through the acquisition of another company and a forward-thinking business plan.

 

David Weissman, president of the fastest growing company in the 19th annual WOOD 100, Creative Custom Components LLC, points to a variety of reasons for the company’s recent success.

“Our growth and success has been a combination of a dedicated and skilled workforce, purchases of new equipment to expand our capabilities, product development and acquisitions,” Weissman says. “It is a tribute to our entire staff, and to our customers, who place their trust in our ability to deliver their visions precisely the way they want, job after job.”

Creative Custom Components’ acquisition of Oak Pointe Stair Systems helped spur its recent growth through the addition of more staff members, additional machinery and a larger manufacturing facility.

Founded in 2005 by Weissman, who has a business management background, and Todd Dennison, whose forte is in manufacturing, the company posted triple-digit growth, helped in part by its recent acquisition of Oak Pointe Stair Systems.

“The Oak Pointe acquisition has been exactly what we needed at Creative Custom Components,” Weissman says. “In 2006, we realized that to become an elite company in the industry we needed more experienced and talented staff members, additional machinery, and a larger and better manufacturing facility. All of our short- to medium-range needs were accomplished by this deal.”

Through Oak Pointe, the company not only manufactures stair systems, but also kitchen, fireplace and full-size columns, bun feet, table legs and more, all in coordinated turnings for home or commercial projects. Through its Creative Custom Components division, offerings include components for the kitchen and bath, building products, furniture, store fixture and tool handle industries, with recurring products such as kitchen island columns, bun feet, round and square tapered legs, columns of all sorts and sizes, finials, newels, box newels, balusters, hand rails, rail fittings and other stair components.

“Our Creative Custom Components division continues as a custom job shop, making products that our customers’ request,” says Weissman. “We design and engineer products for Oak Pointe, and we often do it for our customers. At times, our customers have a product that they want us to make, and they supply all of the information that we need, sometimes even a CAD drawing. Most of the time our customers are looking for input from us. We have people coming to us with a hand sketch of a product, but they have no idea how to engineer it. We excel at these projects, as we have an in-house machine shop with a full-time machinist on staff, as well as an in-house tooling department, and we offer full CAD services. The machine shop allows us to build fixtures to produce custom products, and our ability to do our own tooling, 100 percent in-house, helps us expedite new projects with large quantities.”

Parts similar to the “molecules” in this picture were used in one of Creative Custom Components’ recent projects. The company has worked on other unusual projects, including the production of mallets for Tibetan bowl chimes, custom drumsticks and mannequins to be used in testing the new military G-force suit.

Staying Well Equipped

The company’s recent equipment purchases have included a CNC copy lathe, turning sanders and new computers, and the past summer saw the movement of its warehouse offsite to expand its production space. Weissman says that Creative Custom Components needs to be extremely efficient in its manufacturing techniques in order to survive in the global economy.

“We have some of the finest state-of-the-art turning equipment made,” says Weissman. “In turnings, we can cost effectively do one custom part or we can do runs of thousands of parts because we have 18 production lathes and four copy lathes, with more planned in our future.”

At the same time, Weissman adds that the economy is also a major factor in the evolution of the company’s manufacturing processes.

“Many of us are facing a downturn in the economy unlike anything that we have experienced,” says Weissman. “History shows us that the housing market will turn around and we believe growth can be achieved in this economy, but right now we are being a little more conservative in our plans. We have several new equipment purchases and some software that we plan to acquire, but at the moment these plans have been delayed some. We want to continue to add and upgrade our capabilities. As we grow, we need new software to help us better schedule and track jobs through our plant.”

Weissman says that although the company has not received a large amount of interest from customers looking for green products, he believes the initiatives are important and will grow in interest.

“Earlier this year we looked into the process to become an FSC provider and plan to work with SmartWood to attain this status, sometime in 2009,” says Weissman.

Maintaining a Successful Strategy

Weissman is predicting continued growth in the upcoming year for Creative Custom Components. Though he is not forecasting too many major changes to the company’s business plan in the near future, he still sees progression and the introduction of new products.

“It has been exciting to be recognized as No. 1 in the WOOD 100 survey,” says Weissman. “We would like to continue to experience sound controlled growth, but more important than growth itself, is that we want to earn the reputation of being the best in the industry and a company who people think of first when they want quality work and service. When someone has a difficult project, we want our name to be at the top of their list. If we achieve these goals, we will continue to grow, even in these difficult times.”

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