Early on, Larry Coben and his wife Rhoda focused their business, Apex Metals, on architectural components and accessories. In 1991 they branched out with New Tech Machinery (NTM) and introduced the SSP roof panel machine, the first portable machine with a polyurethane drive, now standard in portable roll-forming equipment.
The company still operates in greater Denver, but in 2004, they opened a new manufacturing facility in Hermosillo, Mexico. This new plant enabled them to cut costs and increase production, and over the years it has become a state-of-the-art facility, working in tandem with the plant now located in Aurora, Colorado.
The company thrived on innovation and played a prominent role in the revolution of portable roll forming that brought panel fabrication directly to the jobsite. In 2015, the Cobens sold the company to Mazzella Companies, based in Cleveland, Ohio. NTM’s plant, however, remains in Colorado. Mazzella also owns Sheffield Metals.
New Tech Today
The company specializes in portable roof and wall panel machines and seamless gutter machines. The machines fabricate standing seam panels, flush wall, soffit, and board-and-batten siding. They also manufacture their WAV wall panel machine that produces wall panels for commercial and industrial applications. Their signature product is the SSQ II MultiPro roof and wall panel machine, which is capable of running 16 different profiles.
With machines on every continent, they are global, with a customer base of roofing or seamless gutter installation contractors and suppliers like Sheffield Metals, Drexel Metals, Petersen Aluminum, and in-plant panel manufacturers.
“A good percentage,” Tom Laird, Senior Account Manager said, “are chop-and-drop people. They take the machines to the job site and run the panels there, so customers avoid freight costs, order errors, and panel damage.”
“Although used mainly on the ground,” Laird continued, “the roll formers can be elevated to roof level so that panels run out onto the roof’s surface. When you are doing 60- or 80-foot panels or more this is a huge advantage because you can avoid flexing, bending, and hauling. Some customers use these machines in-shop, too.”
For years, customers had asked about notching the panels within the machine, and NTM developed a built-in notcher on the SSQ II. The snap-lock style can have problems with water or insects getting in the eave end where the panels lock together, but now they can notch them and make a fold-over tab instead of caulking or using foam closures. The machines also have been modified for easy profile changeovers.
Listening to customers led to the tilt screen to reduce glare and the move to a powder-coated cover to help keep the machine cooler and eliminate sun reflection. These improvements all come from learning about customer challenges.
Teaching new users about the features on a New Tech roll former.
Photos courtesy of New Tech Machinery.
Views of the New Tech Machinery production facilities.
Views of the New Tech Machinery production facilities.
Challenges
Sometimes challenges can spur a company on to do great things. The recession of 2007 and 2008 brought the growth the company was experiencing to a halt, as happened with many manufacturing companies. Company leadership decided they had to remain aggressive, so they continued to advertise and innovate.
“If you continue to innovate and don’t pull back on marketing and advertising during slower times, you will come out of those times as a frontrunner in the market,” Laird said, adding that that was the viewpoint of the COO at the time. And it worked.
Rick Zand, Content Specialist, added that the company has had a lot of great leadership throughout the years. Many employees have been there for over a decade, bringing great drive and a vision of what New Tech could be.
“But,” Laird said, “even if you have the best product on earth, if you don’t have good people to market, advertise, and sell it, it will not be successful.”
Be Competitive with Employees, too
The company sees competitive salaries and benefits as a must to attract and retain quality workers. Further, the company provides a stable, collaborative work environment where leadership sets the tone and parameters, then steps out of the way and lets people do their jobs. They also encourage employees to speak up; they want to hear their ideas and their questions. They listen to feedback about work processes and nurture team spirit.
In 2015 when Mazzella Companies acquired New Tech, they had the same mindset, encouraging their companies to find better ways to do things, to think outside the box, and they always welcome the thoughts and ideas of new people, who haven’t been immersed in the culture for years.
Specialized Packages
While maintaining many returning customers, the sales team has also been working with those new to portable roll forming. They provide guides, articles, and videos, but they found that customers became overwhelmed with all the information, so they developed machine packages based on the customer’s focus. There are different packages for residential and commercial portable roll forming, and in-shop roll forming. This approach has made it easier for customers to understand what they need and how much it will cost, thereby aiding the New Tech team in selling their machines without overloading customers with too much information.
Competitive Service
The service department has continued to expand. Machine technicians take calls to walk customers through a solution to any machine problem they may be having. They also conduct training for all their roll-forming customers, and travel to work with customers on-location.
“Our service people are very good,” Zand said. “They know the machines inside and out, and they will fly out to your site to provide service and training on your machine, wherever you are in the world.”
The company’s Learning Center, found on its website, offers service videos and articles. Their website also features a Support portal where machine owners can get many of their questions answered.
How Can You Make Your Business More Competitive?
Laird has some advice for success in the roll-forming industry:
1. Know your market. Understand what drives the market. Is it a certain profile? Who are your competitors? What do customers in this market expect? For example, it’s hard to sell anything but metal panels in the Florida Keys due to storms they experience.
2. Have a strong plan. A business plan helps keep a company moving forward, moving toward a goal. Know where you want to be in 1, 5, 10, and 20 years. Then develop plans for how to get there from where you are. There may be times when the plan has to be adjusted, and that’s okay. But developing long-term goals and short-term goals are important; they are like a map or GPS that helps you find your destination instead of wandering around lost.
3. Stay ahead of the technology. When you are slow to adopt newer, more efficient ways of doing things, you will not be an industry leader. If you completely refuse to at least keep up with technology, you set yourself up to watch all the competition leave you behind.
4. Try to keep lead times down, but watch that quality doesn’t go down.
Rolling Into the Future
The company’s board and batten profile came out last year, and New Tech continues to innovate. New and exciting things are on the horizon. The future will be driven by what customers are doing, what they want to be doing, and the feedback they provide.
New Tech Machinery is founded on the promise of better technology for a competitive price. They have lived up to this promise for 30 years, and they intend to keep on rolling into the future with that promise intact. RF
