A Big Commitment To Tiny Parts In Leominster | Albright finds its way into space, heart patients
Not far from Route 117 in Leominster is a tidy little building with a nicely landscaped entryway. From the outside, one wouldn’t suspect that the goings on inside Albright Technologies were anything but plastics manufacturing of the kind that put the city on the map.
Artsy Ideas
But inside Albright is where you’ll meet David Comeau, the company’s affable, driven and justifiably proud president. Comeau describes his management style as “disruptive.” He hired an artist-in-residence to set up at Albright and paint pictures all day to foster an atmosphere of creativity. Creativity and innovation are of vital importance to companies of all kinds, he says, especially manufacturers that want to survive.
Comeau founded Albright (the company is named after the road he lives on) about 15 years ago as a rapid prototyping plastics manufacturer. About five years ago, the company moved from plastic to liquid silicone, and the difference is small. Very small.
Liquid silicone can be molded into parts so small you need special equipment to see them. Albright has found a lucrative niche in making parts like that for the medical device industry.
“We saw it as a niche market,” Comeau said. Albright can take customers from prototypes based on early engineering concepts to producing as many parts as needed for clinical trials and on to limited volume production of the final product.
High volume production tends to be done overseas.
“We’re in the high value end,” Comeau said. “Customers pay us to have the product early. For one customer, we saved a year, and that’s a huge number.”
Comeau said about half of what Albright makes are so-called “critical components,” the devices they belong to won’t work without them, including silicone parts used in the food containers on the space shuttle.
Growth Trend
Last year, the private company doubled its sales from the year before. This year, it looks like sales will double again.
“If you’re innovative and creative, you can do it,” Comeau said. “If you look at it like everyone else and say, ‘Well, the economy’s bad, we should go into survival mode,’ that’s where you’ll stay. You have to make a financial commitment to grow, otherwise you’re going to stay where you are.”
So, in addition to expecting his 16 employees to be creative and make mistakes, Comeau is willing to reinvest heavily.
“We can’t dig stuff out of the ground. We don’t have the cheapest labor. We have to develop processes to manufacture,” he said. With the help of a $17,000 state grant, the company became ISO certified about two years ago. About a month ago, the clean room on which the company spent $150,000 was completed. The clean room allows the company to do more for medical device customers.
“A big part of the business is customer service. We will not have an unsatisfied customer. We’re not concerned about the bottom line when we’re dealing with customers,” he said. And it shows. The company’s web site includes a very complimentary video testimonial from Dr. John V. Frangioni, whose labs at Harvard and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston count on Albright for important components used in the cutting edge medical imaging devices being developed there.
Watch as David R. Comeau, president of Albright Technologies in Leominster, discusses the importance of creativity in manufacturing.
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