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High-growth investment for home-grown distributor: Matandy makes key investments in facilities and equipment to gain better control over production and customer service.

Article Excerpt
During a period when other service centers were striving to keep afloat, Matandy Steel and Metal Products LLC, Hamilton, Ohio, was reinventing itself.

By making a series of strategic capital investments over the past few years, and bringing all of its steel processing in-house, the company has improved its efficiency and productivity and increased its sales, especially from toll processing.

Capital improvements include construction of two new buildings at its business campus, installation of a highly automated new slitter and packaging line, and the upgrading of Matandy's computer software to provide better information flow from its new equipment to its sales and production staff.

Frank Pfirman, Matandy owner and president, says that while it might have seemed risky, the investment is paying off. He hopes to further boost toll processing this year from about 3 percent to 6 percent of sales.

Pfirman founded Matandy Steel Sales in 1987, buying and selling steel with a card table, a telephone and a fax machine set up in a spare bedroom of a house inherited from his parents. Processing of the steel he sold was outsourced to Blake Steel Service in Middletown. "During the day, I would handle the buying and selling and ship my material to Blake. At night I would go there and watch the metal being slit."

For three years, Pfirman sold steel from his makeshift office, until 1990 when he leased a larger space and hired some...

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