Elasto Proxy reaches higher with new certification

BOISBRIAND, Quebec—Elasto Proxy's new AS9100 certification is opening new markets for the custom rubber product fabricator and distributor.

The certification allows the firm, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary, to break into the aerospace industry as Elasto Proxy continues a growth phase, said Roberto Naccarato, sales and marketing manager.

Headquartered in Boisbriand with a full production facility, Elasto Proxy started with seals and products for mobile equipment such as agricultural machines like graders and excavators, he said. It also provides for specialized vehicles like fire trucks, ambulances and armored vehicles. It produces seals for military vehicles, including both thermal and acoustic insulation, and also covers mass transit vehicles such as railway, subway and bus systems.

"Mobile equipment has always been our bread and butter in the industry," Naccarato said.

Elasto Proxy has been trying to raise its profile in the mobile equipment and vehicle market, which is part of the reason that it's trying to break into the aerospace industry, he said. The company focuses on low- to medium-volume, more niche products and applications.

"Customers that have issues, things that they cannot seal, or they're having acoustic or thermal issues and they need a problem solved. That's where we like to dip our toe in," Naccarato said. "More and more, that's where we decide to go into aviation or aerospace, because of the small volume, niche products. And obviously, solving problems for the aviation or aerospace industry is interesting."

When Elasto Proxy started to connect with aerospace companies, one of the first questions was always whether it was AS9100-certified, he said. The firm would go to military shows and do interviews with procurement managers or engineers excited because it could provide custom seals or a specialized gasket. But the process always ground to a halt when the question of certification came up.

"We decided, if we want to break through this market, we have to get certified," Naccarato said.

Making the grade

The certification that Elasto Proxy received in September 2018 came with an initial monetary investment and a focus on risk mitigation, but Naccarato said the team was excited for the challenge.

"Do we have the right suppliers for this type of project? How solid is the supplier that we have for this project? Once a part comes in here, what type of inspection does the customer need to have done? If it's 100 percent, what do we have to do to make sure that we get 100 percent inspection on these parts, and so on," he said.

Changing the company's mindset means Elasto Proxy needs to be able to show that it's thought about these questions when auditors ask, Naccarato said. If a gasket fails or isn't delivered to a plane manufacturer and a production line is stalled, it's not just a few hundred dollars per hour, but thousands. Elasto Proxy has to make certain that its vendors are audited on a regular basis, and procedures have to be revamped to verify that processes can be completed without any bumps. And going beyond aerospace, that shift in thinking carried over to other segments at Elasto Proxy.

"We're bringing that mindset into mobile equipment, bringing it into military, medical devices," Naccarato said. "And we see it, we see a change in production. We see a change in my sales staff, how they think. It's very risk-oriented, in how we can mitigate risk as much as possible."

While taking on the challenges around AS9100, Elasto Proxy also progressed from ISO 9001:2008 to ISO 9001:2015 certification, he said. Both sets of certification had some overlap, which meant it made sense to do both at once. The leadership team had started preparing for the certification guidelines even earlier by investing an undisclosed amount into a lab and testing equipment at the Boisbriand facility two years before attempting certification.

"We're still considered a small business, but we have the 'think big' mentality inside," Naccarato said. "One thing that ownership does tremendously here is that they reinvest the earnings back into the company every year in new machinery or new equipment."

The new lab and equipment two years earlier put them "two steps ahead, if we had to go AS, with what's required," Naccarato said. For example, if engineering required a certain level of compression to be attained at particular amounts of pressure, the lab gave Elasto Proxy a way to determine it.

"We did that way before we ever went ahead with our AS9100 certification process," Naccarato said.

Elasto Proxy also invested in personnel, hiring a research and development manager to develop new processes and means of validation before taking on AS9100, he said. It maintains about 45 employees, and one objective for Elasto Proxy in the next three years is to bring that number up to 50, which should sustain the firm for the next 3-5 years.

Another way that Elasto Proxy has been trying to make itself known to a larger audience is by expanding its outreach, not just to customers, but to the general market as an industry knowledge resource, Naccarato said. Aside from standard news releases and testimonials, the company has run a regular blog for the past seven years, breaking down market concepts and comparing product types, with topics like "How to install edge trim" and "What's the difference between nitrile vs. neoprene?"

Beyond the blog posts, Elasto Proxy hosts what might be one of the first podcasts, "The Art of Sealing," about rubber industry topics from rubber industry experts, linked on its main web page. The episodes provide discussion similar to the blog, plus talk with employees and interviews with industry experts at conferences like CanSec.

"As crazy as the idea was, a rubber company doing podcasting, we wanted to be able to hit our customers or listeners or readers in as many different ways as possible," said Naccarato, who hosts the podcasts. "What if you don't have time to read the blog, or you want to listen to it while you're on a plane, at the gym, stuck in traffic or whatever? So you decide to go audio."

Naccarato said he knows "The Art of Sealing" has listeners, because he's been recognized a few times while out at conferences since the show's debut.

"This year at CanSec, a guy came up to our booth, and he goes 'Hey, you're the podcast guys, right? You talk about rubber on your podcast?' and all of us are kind of sitting there like, hey, we've got a fan, look at that," he said.

Elasto Proxy also is slowly moving toward incorporating video for some topics, to reach more visual learners, he said.

Balanced building

The firm's locations also give it an advantage in developing for the aerospace industry, he said. Along with its Boisbriand location, it has light fabrication at its Simpsonville, S.C., location, and offices in both Newmarket, Ontario, and Sint-Niklaas, Belgium. Montreal and Paris are both large worldwide aerospace hubs, and Elasto Proxy has locations not far from either. Simpsonville is not far from Atlanta, which makes up a large hub in the U.S.

Beyond the regional opportunity, pushing into aerospace is another way for the company to support itself by diversifying its markets going forward into another 30 years, he said. Especially with a focus on developing for lower volume in niche markets, expanding into aerospace will anchor the company as markets shift. Within the next few years, Elasto Proxy would like between 15-20 percent of its revenues to come from aerospace customers.

"We're a company that believes in equilibrium and, as the years go, certain industries may get a bit harder than others," Naccarato said. "At one point, the company was purely focused on military, and then it corrected itself. We try to be equal in our main industries."

Even though mobile equipment makes up the largest part of Elasto Proxy's business, the sector is diversified into multiple smaller sectors such as construction, agriculture, mining and specialty vehicles, he said.

"We try to keep a balance within as much as possible. We take an investor's approach in our sales to make sure that there's balance in the industry," Naccarato said.

Alongside aerospace, Elasto Proxy is pushing into the medical devices market going forward, he said. Montreal serves as a hub for medical devices as well, and the firm is establishing connections with industry partners.

"One thing we're always talking about is continuous improvement," Naccarato said. "We don't get comfortable. We don't sit back and say, 'We have arrived.' Once we've achieved whatever we're looking to achieve, the next question is how we make it better."