Electro-Matic Products Inc. has been in business in Farmington Hills since 1969. That longevity isn't due to staying the same, but rather to changing with the demands of the market.
When discussing the success of the company he has been with for nearly 30 years, David Scaglione, vice president of sales and marketing, likes to reference Charles Darwin.
“It's not the strongest of the species or the most intelligent of the species that survives, it's that species that is most willing to change,” Scaglione said. “As we see technology trends evolving we changed our product lines to go after those trends.”
Until eight years ago, Scaglione worked in the Brecksville, OH, office. In his time with the company it has had to undergo many changes, like in the late 1980s when General Motors decided it would no longer be using hydraulic robots, which Electro-Matic had been selling.
Scaglione said Electro-Matic leadership recognized that the electric robots that would be used in place of the hydraulic ones would need harnesses and cables, so the company went into the robot harness business.
Transforming
In 2007, Electro-Matic, which employs about 160 people, began a new transformation. It started participation in the Employee Stock Ownership Plan, in which shares of the company can be purchased from the current owners and held in a trust. The employees of the company are the beneficiaries of that trust.
At the end of September 2012, Electro-Matic became a wholly employee-owned company. Scaglione said he thinks the former owners of the company, Ray Persia, Tom Moore and Jim Baker, built in the entrepreneurial spirit, and being employee-owned will lead to even more innovation and adaptation in the future.
“Every employee now has a vested interest in seeing the company succeed and grow,” he said. “They're no longer just an employee, they are an owner, they have a vested interested in this. And that sense of ownership creates a tremendous amount of pride.”
Today, Electro-Matic has three business units: distribution, industrial cable and connector assembly and special products.
Siemens AG, an international company based in Germany, is the largest manufacturer for which Electro-Matic distributes, specifically Siemens Energy and Automation, Inc. It also distributes for manufacturers such as Rittal and Turck.
Its industrial cable and connector assembly products are sold through the brand name EMP Connectivity.
The special products business includes Electro-Matic's LED lighting technology. The technology is used on message boards inside factories as well as outside schools, businesses and on billboards. Scaglione said this line of business is ever-expanding as LED technology becomes more popular to use for lighting and other purposes.
With Siemens, Electro-Matic will host the Manufacturing in America Symposium at Ford Field on March 20 and 21. The symposium is free to attend and registration can be done online at usa.siemens.com/techtipoff
