Moving on up
By the time Montreal Neon took over its current building in July, the move was long overdue.
“The last five years in the previous building, especially, were painful,” says Paolucci. “We could no longer be efficient there.”
“That building was way too small,” Dupré explains. “It was costing us so much just to move everything around, which didn’t make sense, so we gathered our employees’ opinions about what was needed in the next facility.”
They spent long months looking for a suitable space that would meet these needs, but never found one—so they finally decided to build one.
“This is new construction, but it took us a few years to realize we needed that,” says Paolucci. “We’ve invested in a lot of new equipment because now we finally have space for it, with a much more efficient workflow.”
“It wasn’t cheap, but we went over the numbers with our bank and our accounting firm, which have supported us over the years,” says Dupré. “They have always understood where we want to take the business.”
Founders Linda Dupré and Carlo Paolucci say they work together well because they can each focus on their strongest skills.
Among the additions are: a dedicated 20 x 4.9 x 6.7-m (65 x 16 x 22-ft) painting booth, strategically located between the metal-forming and -finishing departments, with X-, Y- and Z-axis controlled chairs on man lifts that allow operators to paint large pylon signs from any angle; an Accu-Bend system for producing channel letters; larger overhead cranes to lift and move large signs across the facility; a larger MultiCam Canada computer numerical control (CNC) routing table to handle up to 20-m (65-ft) sheets of material; a custom-engineered, semi-automated system for loading those sheets onto the CNC table; and sandblasting units enclosed in their own department, with dedicated air intake.
On the HR side, meanwhile, the new building offers staff a larger cafeteria, a gym and an outdoor terrace.
“This building has made a huge difference,” says Dupré. “Our people are much happier now in this layout and with our inventory management system. Instead of moving signs around an inefficient space, they’re producing. They sing and have a smile on their face as they work. And with this amount of land, we can grow rather than move again. This was the best investment we could have made.”
Branching out
Also, earlier this year, they launched a sister business, M Signage Solutions, with a sales office in Chicago, Ill., to help further develop the U.S. market for their products. The office is currently run by two sales/project managers, but the plan is to hire more project managers in Chicago to work more directly on sign projects for U.S. clients.
“This will make things easier,” says Dupré. “We had a contact in Chicago and the timing was right. Our next step will be to open an office in Toronto to deal with our major clients’ whose head offices are based there.”
With all of this expansion continuing, it is no surprise Dupré and Paolucci’s next goal is to double the size of their business again.
“We’re not old yet and we still have a lot of passion for this business,” says Dupré.
