Process Retail Group moved into a new 136,000-square-foot building at 5800 S. Moorland Road in New Berlin recently.
The company, which was formerly known as Process Displays, provides design, printing, assembly and logistics services to customers in the retail industry, who ask it to produce signing, displays and more.
Process Retail Group changed its name in November, largely because of the increase in design, engineering and prototyping work that it does. The company has tripled in size over the last 10 years because of a change in direction made by its new owners, Mike Pranke and Brendan Rowen, who are not involved in the company on a day-to-day basis.
“There was a strategic decision to focus on design and product development,” said Bob Zanotti, president of the company. “We didn’t abandon manufacturing. We provided a lot more value to retailers and major brands, which has driven our ability to get into larger platforms.”
Process Retail Group has gained over the last 10 years a group of national retail customers that rely on its internal design services just as much, if not more, than its manufacturing abilities. Current clients include Walgreen’s, GameStop and other national chains.
“The design side is the agency side of our business,” Zanotti said. “We have designers, engineers and model makers, so when a retailer or a brand comes to us with a visual marketing challenge, we function like their agency. For Walgreen’s, we have 15 to 30 projects in development at any time. Their people are in our building every day.”
Process Retail Group has about 60 full time workers. It also uses flexible workers for its assembly operations. The company may have 20 to more than 100 temporary workers at any given time.
“We have about 20 (full time) people in manufacturing,” Zanotti said. “We have a lot of peaks and valleys. Our professional manufacturing people function as leads.”
Process Retail Group uses a combination of internal manufacturing and assembly and outsourcing to supply its customers. The company also provides logistics services to its clients, who are frequently national retailers, to design, build and ship signage and displays to stores across the country as they’re needed.
The company’s use of internal and outside manufacturing and assembly, paired with its in-house design, allows it to operate much leaner than its competitors, Zanotti said. Process Displays splits its printing and manufacturing of its components into approximate thirds. It makes about one-third, sources from local suppliers another one-third, and uses Asian suppliers for another one-third. Most final assembly is done in house.
“Most companies our size employ more than 200 people,” Zanotti said. “The best model I can (compare us to) is a Harley-Davidson or an automotive manufacturer. They do the final assembly, they manufacture certain parts and subcontractors supply certain parts. We source more than 50 different manufacturing disciplines. Some (customers) want wood, metal, lighting, and many different plastics in one fixture.”
Process Retail Group had occupied its former facility, which was also in New Berlin, since 1967. The company had a 57,000-square-foot office and manufacturing building and an 80,000-square-foot production facility and warehouse across the street.
“It was not efficient,” Zanotti said. “We’ll be happy to get it all under one roof.”
More importantly, the new facility will more accurately reflect the company’s capabilities and branding to its clients, who are frequent visitors.
“We’re a marketing company,” Zanotti said. “We need space that looks like a marketing company. We have Fortune 100 clients visiting us with regularity that are looking at us as a marketing partner. We needed space that was real smart from an imaging standpoint.”
While Process Retail Group emphasizes its design capabilities to customers, it has also added new manufacturing capabilities in its new facility. The company is now able to deliver multi-color screening and five axis CNC routing, and may add digital printing in the future, Zanotti said.
In its previous facility, Process Retail Group occupied 137,000 square feet. Most of the space in the new facility is now filled – and the company already is planning for future growth.
“We’ve maxed out the site for the most part,” Zanotti said. “Our building is the size of the current company. We’ve got about 15,000 square feet of additional space for expansion. Our contingency plan is to move out our logistics operation (to another space), which would free up about 40,000 square feet.”
