Tying It All Together In Gardner | Small, nimble and productive, ACT can compete with anyone
Ken Tomasetti, president of ACT Fastening Solutions in Gardner, has a message for manufacturers: “We can compete against China.”
And other manufacturers should listen to what he has to say. In a compact plant in the Summit Industrial Park, ACT manufactures plastic cable ties, a product that one would almost assume comes only from China or other low-wage countries.
But Tomasetti isn’t going to tell you that your company has to get lucky. He’s not going to suggest that your company fill some obscure niche. Luck has had nothing to do with ACT’s success. It doesn’t make a specialty product. In fact, ACT’s cable ties are used in about a dozen vastly different industries.
What sets the company apart is the fact that, as Tomasetti put it, “We’re running the Daytona 500 every day here.”
Tie Score
When Tomasetti started ACT in 1992, he could make between 30 million and 50 million cable ties each year. Today, it’s a $20 million company and makes 1.7 billion cable ties each year.
All of this is the result of Tomasetti’s commitment to improving the product, streamlining the manufacturing process and constant, heavy reinvestment in the company, its equipment and its people. The company’s more-than 100 employees run three shifts per day, 24 hours per day. They keep the place immaculate, and no one at ACT has received a raise in years. Instead, ACT has “a major bonus program” that makes payouts similar to a profit sharing program at the end of every year. Tomasett said the bonuses exceed what he could give employees in regular wage increases.
The ACT plant currently runs 15 electric-powered molding machines that can turn nylon pellets into a bag of cable ties in 6 seconds. All the equipment that automates the manufacturing process was designed and built by Tomasetti, an engineer by training. The electric molding machines that do the actual manufacturing, he buys. He’s got a 16th on order.
The electric machines are faster, more efficient and easier to maintain than hydraulic machines, Tomasetti said, making them well worth the massive investment. They cost between $300,000 and $500,000 each. In all, Tomasetti reinvests about $1.5 million a year in the company’s automation equipment, and another $1.5 million in the molding equipment.
He said manufacturers today “can’t run belt-leather drives,” or any equipment that is the least bit outdated. “You have to be in the top 10 percent of your industry if you’re going to compete,” he said.
Tomasetti also believes in keeping the company small and doing everything in-house. Many of ACT’s customers are “private label” customers. That is, the ties are not identified as ACT ties. So, in a small office just off the factory floor, the company makes all of those labels.
To meet rigorous safety and quality standards required for dealing with many of its customers, including the military, the cable ties must be tested for strength and for how easily they fasten. All of that testing is also done in-house at ACT. All of the company’s machinery is maintained by in-house maintenance staff.
Tomasetti also purposely keeps the company small, a skill he may have learned by starting ACT in his house. “It’s good to be a small company,” he said. “So when you need to turn the ship around, you can do it in minutes, not days or years.”
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