Hartford Business Journal

27 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | NOVEMBER 29, 2021 Company Profile By Skyler Frazer Special to the Hartford Business Journal M k North America is expanding its existing Bloomfield site, creating more manufacturing space and shipping areas to help increase its production and efficiency. The company, located at 105 Highland Park Drive, said the additional 40,000 square feet of manufacturing space will support recent growth. Mk is an original equipment manufacturer that designs and creates conveyor systems, particularly with extruded aluminum. Its main customers are manufacturers and companies called integrators. "An integrator would take the conveyor system from us, and they would take a robot from a robotics company, and they might take something from a third company and then they would put it all together with controls and do the installation," said mk North America's Marketing Manager Kate Nadeau. Nadeau said the company has expanded on its original building in the past and purchased a neighboring property several years ago, but the two currently act as separate workspaces. The expansion will further combine the buildings into a larger space; three new loading docks will also be installed. "We needed the space because we've been growing huge," Nadeau said. "There's just no room to assemble these conveyor systems and everything else, and it's creating a bottleneck not having that space to build things." Open positions Mk North America was founded in Torrington in 1988 before relocating to Bloomfield. It's part of the mk Technology Group, which operates out of Germany. Nadeau said it's a 50-50 partnership, with half of the company owned locally in the U.S. and the other half held by the parent company in Germany. Mk is led locally by President Andreas Haussmann. Financial details for the company are not public, Nadeau said. Mk North America currently has 72 employees and nine open positions related to its general growth in recent years. After the expansion is completed sometime next year, Nadeau said there could be more jobs added. "We have increased our staffing levels by 26% over the past year as we grow momentum around our products and services," said mk North America's HR and accounting manager Deanna Ridgway. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, Nadeau said mk North America didn't have production issues last year. "The manufacturing sector is really being driven by a lot of reshoring – since we make manufacturing equipment there was no slowdown for us," Nadeau said. "We haven't had a slowdown since 2008-09." The company's existing two buildings comprise 46,000 square feet of manufacturing space, so the expansion will bring mk North America's total production footprint to about 86,000 square feet. "This is a big deal to us as we take our commitment to the industry very seriously," said mk North America Specialist Mike D'Addario. "The expansion will effectively double the floor space allocated to our extrusion stocking area, assembly room, and shipping and receiving departments, and the machine shop will triple in size. The addition of new CNC machines will expand capabilities, increase throughput, and allow us to maintain control over more of the processes in-house." Despite the industry's overall growth, many manufacturers in the state have struggled recruiting new employees. Further, many prospective employees are often wooed by one of the state's larger manufacturers, Nadeau said, which can often offer higher pay and better benefits. "It has not been as easy as one might think," to recruit workers, Nadeau said. Nadeau said mk North America has worked with the state's manufacturing training programs to recruit talent. Ridgway, the HR manager, said much of the company's hiring success comes by way of referrals from current employees. They've hired about 20 people this year alone. According to the 2021 Connecticut Manufacturing Report produced by the Connecticut Business & Industry Association, 88% of responding manufacturers said they are having difficulty finding and/or retaining employees. Forty-one percent of those companies said the workforce labor shortage was their main obstacle for growth. Connecticut's Chief Manufacturing Officer Colin Cooper wrote in the report that demand for skilled laborers is up more than 40% from pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels, according to surveys. The report said that as of September, there were 153,000 manufacturing employees in Connecticut, making up 10% of the state's workforce. Bloomfield-based builder PDS Engineering & Construction, the company that constructed mk North America's original and existing buildings, is leading the design and construction of the new expansion. Expanding Bloomfield manufacturer mk North America's biggest challenge: finding workers AT A GLANCE Company: mk North America Industry: Manufacturing Top Executive: Andreas Haussmann, President HQ: 105 Highland Park Dr., Bloomfield Company Website: www. mknorthamerica.com Phone Number: 860-769-5500 Bloomfield manufacturer mk North America is expanding its Highland Park Road facilities (shown above) as demand for its aluminum conveyor systems increases. Mk North America currently occupies two Bloomfield buildings comprising 46,000 square feet. PHOTO | CONTRIBUTED PHOTO | CONTRIBUTED

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