An Introduction to MAC Valves, Inc.:
MAC Valves, Inc., is a fast growing, people oriented manufacturer of solenoid operated air valves. The company was founded in Detroit in 1948, and since has grown to well in excess of 100 million dollars. By fast growing, we mean doubling in sales every 5 years for decades. This has been a growth rate of 15 percent compounded annually.
We manufacture a complete range of 2, 3, and 4-way solenoid operated, mechanically operated, solenoid pilot operated, and remote air operated valves. We also manufacture integral regulators and flow controls for use within our products. Over the years, we have established a reputation for recognizing and satisfying the needs and requirements of our customers with high quality and technically superior products. This has enabled us to grow at a consistently fast rate for the past 40-plus years. Two factors have been essential for achieving this position and providing for this fast steady growth.
The first factor has been people. We have approximately 600 employees in our Wixom and Dundee plants and 900 worldwide. We are a privately owned company, owned entirely by people who work within the company. The atmosphere is one of cooperation and participation in every area of the company from the shop floor to management. This gives workers, engineers, and managers alike an opportunity to have an input and say into what is done. We also try to push responsibility to individual workers as well as engineers. We encourage and stress learning at every level as much as possible.
The second factor is products. We are involved in the pneumatic industry - a fast growing market. Air valves are used in a wide number of industrial and commercial applications such as; automated equipment for manufacturing and assembly, robotics, packaging and bottling equipment, glass making machinery, textile manufacturing equipment, tire and rubber manufacturing equipment, conveying and sorting equipment, lumber industry equipment, medical, dispensing, the list goes on and on. We are also currently developing valves for liquid dispensing.
Almost anywhere compressed air is used to perform work, a market exists for our valves.
This allows us to diversify easily and not feel the large fluctuations involved in a specific industry. An indication of this would be that we have not laid off any employee in over 50 years. In addition to being involved in a growing industry, we have a reputation in our business as an innovator of design ideas. This is evidenced in the fact that we have over 100 patents worldwide. We are constantly striving to improve our designs and stretch our technology.
Besides our growth domestically, MAC Valves has also been growing rapidly overseas. With foreign sales accounting for 40% of our total sales, we are a multi-national company. Presently, we have an assembly plant in Leige, Belgium (established in 1970), and interests in Auckland, New Zealand, and to meet the growing demand for our products, we have a 70,000 sq. ft. assembly plant (established in 2001) in Dundee, Michigan (40 miles south of our Wixom plant). In 2003 we expanded with a plant in Taiwan to supply products worldwide.
In June, 1989, we acquired a small molded rubber products manufacturing company which produces high quality, close tolerance parts and components for ourselves for use in our valves and for a variety of other customers.
MAC Valves, Inc., is located about 30 miles west of Detroit. We have our corporate headquarters and main plant at this location. We are situated away from the "big city", but we are very accessible to Detroit and its surrounding suburbs.
