Business Spotlight: Snap Lock Inc.

By 1999, Frank Norton, owner of FBN Metal Products Inc. in Battlefield, had designed and fabricated a lot of stuff for customers.

The next question, daughter Kelly Norton says, was "How can I pre-engineer a system so I'm not having to design the same thing over and over again?"

He had an injured arm and time on his hands, so he got to thinking and came up with a conveyor system that could be modified for just about any need and could snap together like Lego blocks. It could be shipped easily, assembled on site without any special tools or training, and it was made of materials that met food-industry requirements.

The patent was next, and it came through in 2000. A year later, Snap Lock Inc. was officially in business.

Frank Norton took his idea to a bakery trade show that year in Las Vegas - a massive expense for a startup.

"It was his big launch, his big hurrah," says Kelly Norton, who now runs Snap Lock's day-to-day operations. "The first day of the show was amazing. We still have customers from that first day.

"The second day was 9/11 and the show got shut down - not to mention what the economy did at that time," says Norton.

Despite the economic turbulence that followed Sept. 11, Snap Lock began building a customer base, and its sales started to climb.

But it proved difficult for one man to run two companies.

"With the sister companies, it seemed when one took off, the other one got (put on the back burner)," Kelly Norton says.

So Frank Norton brought Kelly on two years ago as conveyor solutions manager to focus on Snap Lock, which last year was named a finalist for the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce Manufacturer of the Year award.

Building relationships

Prior to Kelly Norton's arrival, there was no organized sales staff, no one dedicated exclusively to building the customer base.

In previous jobs, Norton had gained experience in customer service and sales training. So the Nortons decided to try something new: hire a sales team and develop a training program. And having his daughter there would allow Frank Norton to pour more energy into FBN and new designs for Snap Lock.

In January 2008, Kelly Norton hired two sales associates and put them through a three-month training boot camp. She brought in vendors, took the associates on plant tours and taught them how to build a conveyor so they would have an intimate understanding of the product and customers' needs.

"We have invested in them to invest their time on these plants. Three, six, nine months of phone calls and conversations are starting to turn into projects," Norton says.

The investment appears to be paying off.

"We have exceeded 2008 revenue in just the first five months of 2009," Norton says, declining to disclose specifics. "It's really exciting to see this come around."

Providing solutions

Norton says Snap Lock isn't just about conveyor systems sales; it's about problem solving.

Customers turn to them when they're having a problem, and Snap Lock works to design a solution.

Terry Leinberger, maintenance manager for the Rhodes Bake-N-Serv plant in Caldwell, Idaho, is among those who've turned to Snap Lock for help.

About the time Snap Lock got started, the plant was facing a major expansion. Leinberger happened across the Snap Lock system and decided to try it.

"We've utilized (Snap Lock) a lot since then because of the versatility of (the conveyors)," Leinberger says. "It's sort of like an Erector Set, so to speak."

When new products were introduced a couple of years later, instead of having to buy a new conveyor system, Rhodes adapted what it had.

"If it was a normal conveyor system," Leinberger notes, "we would have had to tear it out and buy new. But with the Snap Lock, we disassemble and we rebuild it to accommodate our needs."

Working largely for the food industry, sanitation is huge.

"The fact that the plastic parts snap in and out of place without the aid of tools helps to give a better sanitation," Frank Norton says. "(Clients) can get to areas that before they would have to unbolt so therefore they just didn't clean them as well."

With consumer demands and preferences constantly shifting, it's important that manufacturers have adaptable equipment, Kelly Norton adds.

"Consumer trends change what manufacturers do. We may not be eating steaks ... but we are eating hot dogs, hamburgers, lunch meat, stuff like that," Norton says. "That changes what the food industry and the plants are creating."

The biggest problem Snap Lock has solved for Rhodes involved inserting icing packets into bags of frozen sweet rolls. The system previously used was labor-intensive.

"Frank figured this one out," Leinberger says. The new conveyors "paid for themselves in just a matter of three or four months," because they eliminated the need for six staff members a day.

Norton hopes to bring on another two to five employees in the next 18 months and says the sister companies may soon need to look for larger quarters. Snap Lock also recently launched a Web site, www.snaplockequip.com, complete with an e-store and automated maintenance reminders for customers.

"I think it's just going to continue to grow," Norton says. "That's been my dad's goal from the get-go."