EL MONTE, Calif.— Miller Dial, LLC, a pioneering figure in product identification solutions and user interface component manufacturing, today announced it has acquired Innovative Components Company (INCO). The Simi Valley, Calif., elastomeric keypad manufacturer has specialized in providing exemplary service and quality to its nationwide customer base since 1982. Miller Dial’s acquisition ofINCO bolsters its position as the industry leader in high quality, low-cost production.
Miller Dial President Jim Kaldem felt increasing demand for smaller, service-oriented manufacturers, such as INCO, to offer more competitive pricing made the acquisition a natural fit for both companies.
“This is not our first acquisition of a company dealing with the competitive pricing demands of this market,” said Kaldem. “We have acquired other companies that have a long history of phenomenal customer support, but struggled to meet increased pressure to reduce prices.”
Miller Dial, through a strong combination of excellent engineering and economies of scale can offer substantial cost advantages to the customers of smaller companies like INCO.
“Equal or superior service levels coupled with significant longer-term price advantages are the goals that we drive for with each of these acquisitions,” commented Bob Montano, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Miller Dial.
Homer Bastug, INCO’s Founder and General Manager, believes INCO’s customers will be excited about the acquisition.
“The majority of our customers have been with INCO for over 25 years,” said Bastug. “I’m happy they will continue to receive the high-level of customer support and quality INCO has provided over the years. Now they will have the best of both worlds with Miller Dial’s ability to offer low-cost production options.”
About Miller Dial
Based in El Monte, Calif., Miller Dial is an internationally-recognized manufacturer of graphic product identification solutions and user interface components, including metal and plasticnameplates, domed labels, decals, graphic overlays, membrane switches, rubber keypads, touch screens and LCDs. In cooperation with these products, Miller Dial is duly recognized as a leader in cost-effective subassemblies. The company’s 70-plus years of experience in product identification and user interface manufacturing, combined with its strategic partnerships with PCB manufacturers, plastic injection molders and other highly qualified manufacturers, allows Miller Dial to take your product from concept to completion without cost complexity and the hassle of dealing with multiple suppliers. To learn more about Miller Dial visit www.millerdial.com or call 800.989.3645. Miller Dial is a Quantum Ventures of Michigan company. For more information about Quantum and its companies visit www.qvmllc.com.
Quantum has a new website (www.qvmllc.com). As you can see the web address hasn’t changed, but the content has. Please take some time to familiarize yourself with it and share it with your contacts. The new site is a dynamic communication tool with lots of new company information and resources. Visit the site today and see what we’ve been up to.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE—August 12, 2010 Contact: Mike Brinich, Director of Communications Office: 248.292.0879; Mobile: 586.703.6966
California Manufacturer Making Product Concepts a Reality in Record Time with New Prototyping Program
EL MONTE, Calif.— Miller Dial, LLC, a pioneering figure in product identification solutions and user interface component manufacturing, today announced it has furthered its commitment to delivering the industry’s fastest turnaround time on prototypes with the introduction of Two-day Graphic Overlays. The quick-turn prototype program combines Miller Dial’s signature quality and design innovation with low-cost production to offer customers up to 10 plastic overlays, nameplates or labels just two days after the final lay-out is approved.
“Beating competitors to market with new products or conveying visual concepts in product design is vital to our customers,” said Miller Dial General Manager Jim Kaldem. “Creating a well defined quick-turn prototype program like Two-day Graphic Overlays illustrates Miller Dial’s dedication to helping customers reduce product development cycles.”
Designed as a solution for time critical projects such as tradeshows and new product introductions, Two-day Graphic Overlays can also play an integral role in concept model presentations and industrial design evaluation. The prototype program can be used to create non-functional models of membrane keypads, front panels and displays. When customers are ready to move beyond the prototype stage, the same Miller Dial engineers and technicians that created the prototype will be responsible for the design and fabrication of the product at the company’s manufacturing facility in El Monte, Calif., or one of its close offshore partner factories.
The Apollo 11 space flight landed the first humans on Earth’s Moon on July 20, 1969. The mission, carried out by the United States, is considered a major accomplishment in human exploration and represented a victory by the U.S. in the Cold War Space Race with the Soviet Union.
Many of the leading manufacturers of the time were contracted to fabricate components for the mission. Miller Dial was contracted to manufacture around 100 lunar plaques. These plaques were made out of stainless steel and were 9″ x 7 5/8″.
The plaque was attached to the ladder on the descent stages of the lunar module. The remainder went to pivotal people who contributed to the Apollo mission and were given out as mementos to foreign governments through various United States Embassies immediately after the flight.
All of the plaques bear facsimiles of the participating astronauts’ signatures. The Apollo 11 plaque bears a facsimile of the signature of President Richard Nixon.
Other than the fact that most of its resident companies aren’t startups, the headquarters of Auburn Hills-based Quantum Ventures of Michigan L.L.C. almost resembles a business incubator.
The corporate development and investment firm houses 11 of its 25 companies in less than 60,000 square feet of office space on Doris Road — some of the companies separated by just partition walls or aisles between groups of cubicles.
More occupants are on the way as the company, founded in 2002 as Quantum Value Management by former Noble International Ltd. Chairman Bob Skandalaris, closed in late February on the purchase of Rochester Hills-based Coating Specialists L.L.C.
A second acquisition awaits regulatory approval any day from the federal General Services Administration, Skandalaris said.
Coating Specialists and the second local company could be moving into Quantum’s building even as the staff of CDI Technology L.L.C. prepares to move out. Quantum just sold CDI, which supplies point of sale and paging technology to the restaurant and hospitality industry, to Troy-based credit card processing company North American Bancard Inc. a few weeks ago. The company would not disclose the sale price.
“We like to find companies that have good management and a good business plan, and maybe are lacking in marketing or in the capitalization to carry some of that out,” Skandalaris said.
“And what our acquisition often becomes about is bringing the company aboard and
executing its (own) business plan.”
Combined 2009 revenue from the Auburn Hills portfolio of companies was about $50 million, which was nearly the same as the year before, said Garrett Morelock, president of the 3Sixty Distribution Group platform of Quantum.
But those same companies could make a combined $75 million for Quantum this year, he said, adding in the newest acquisitions and figuring a very slow national economic recovery during the year.
Quantum bought its current headquarters building last spring. It’s the former engineering center for Southgate-based ASC Inc. before that company went bankrupt in 2007. Quantum consolidated several of its companies when it relocated there from Bloomfield Hills last fall.
Revenue for 2009 among non-headquarters companies in Quantum’s portfolio could be more than $90 million, although one of the largest — Bridgeview, Ill.-based lift equipment maker Manitex International Ltd. (Nasdaq: MNTX) — will not release year-end earnings until later this week.
Quantum also owns Ann Arbor microprocessor company Xembedded L.L.C. and El Monte, Calif.-based graphic products maker Miller Dial L.L.C. It co-owns the joint venture Cardinal Insurance Agency with Southfield-based Meadowbrook Insurance Group, and holds a minority share of New York-based global online gift registry service MyRegistry.com as well as maintaining a small share of Manitex.
“Generally, we’re looking for companies within the $2 million to $20 million range in
revenue, though we do look bigger or smaller, and our sellers have often been in business themselves for 20-30 years,” Morelock said. “We like them to have been around long enough to go through at least a complete economic cycle and show they can weather a downturn.”
There are exceptions.
Quantum bought Birmingham-based business search engine marketing firm LocalBizNow about two years ago, Skandalaris said, after it had operated for a year or so as a startup. In late 2009, Quantum acquired Birmingham-based SportStat L.L.C., which now operates as sports-themed mobile device application U-Score. Both are now in Auburn Hills.
Skandalaris said just three or four of Quantum’s 25 portfolio companies would fit any
definition of a startup, and Quantum is mainly in the market for second-stage or middlemarket companies that it can grow and then sell or take public.
“This helps bring all the companies under one roof that need some level of our help, and we can do in-house marketing for them as well as share some overhead and other costs,” Morelock said.
“The hope is to get a little more incubation here, and then to eventually ship them off and stand them up elsewhere.”
Skandalaris, chairman of the company, said Quantum was a part-time pursuit for its first few years after inception but grew into his primary business as his responsibilities diminished at Noble.
Quantum started with a small group of manufacturing and distribution companies, including Monroe Pro MotorCar Products at Auburn Hills and what is now Manitex, then branched out by acquisition into other industries, he said.
The company carries no bank debt and funds all acquisitions “internally,” he said, but did not elaborate.
Skandalaris resigned as Noble chairman in early 2008 after taking an offer for 2.4 million shares of the auto supplier’s stock to European steelmaker ArcelorMittal S.A. for more than $33 million. Noble was liquidated by bankruptcy court order last December.
About a month ago, Morelock said, Quantum also reorganized to collect its growing portfolio under various “platforms” for its industry groups.
A platform is generally a company that an investment or equity firm creates or acquires and then uses to own and operate its holdings in a specific industry.
Quantum’s platforms will be its 3Sixty Distribution Group in Auburn Hills, as well as legal entities for its media companies, interactive technology, financial services, emerging companies and manufacturing businesses. A specialty chemicals platform will also hold Coating Specialists and the acquisition that still awaits GSA approval.
Skandalaris said Quantum’s parent company management now consists only of himself, CFO Scott Kania and Michael Azar, vice president and general counsel.
The rest of the employees in Auburn Hills, more than 100, now belong to one of the
platforms or portfolio companies.
Brian Demkowicz, managing partner at Detroit-based private equity firm Huron Capital Partners, said Huron also has used several platforms for its portfolio since inception. Healso said he knows the management at Quantum, and if the company is adopting a similar model it could be a sign of an aggressive growth strategy.
“Generally, the platform model suggests a company’s desire to have people more involvedin specific operational processes,” Demkowicz said.
“Adopting the model shows that the equity, or management firm that creates a platform, is interested in building up further within that specific industry.”
Nate Balcom - Web Designer, Social Media Marketer And Code Poet @ Quantum Interactive Group. He's been with the 3 Sixty Group for over 5 years building, designing and maintaining company and client websites. In his spare time Nate maintains his own Social Media blog.
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