Robot added to manufacturing processChristmas came early for

MIFAB last year with the arrival of a new robotic

welding cell. The welding cell, pur-

chased to increase productivi-ty and welding quality, arrived at the Chicago manufacturing facility in early October 2012. After the arrival of the welding cell, a working area was creat-ed and product training took place over the following three weeks. The robotic cell was placed into production the first week of November 2012.

A programmable robot, the welding arm has a six-axis arm allowing it to rotate and position itself to weld parts and components. It is designed to produce quality, consistent welds from a

There is always the possibility

of adding more equipment...”

“

In this Issue...

March 6, 2013

all star

2Check out product news and updates, as well as customer service tips, on pg. 2.

3Expanded marketing

material offering available throughout

2013, on pg. 3.

4Agencies spotlighted for success, addition to MIFAB sales force, on pg. 4.

5California agency

uses Beeco for water conservation initiatives, on pg. 5.

program that was created specifically for the part.

In addition to increasing the level of productivity for manufacturing while main-taining a two week or less lead time on all i n t e r c e p -tors, the w e l d i n g arm will also be utilized to tig weld trench drain products as the program library is increased.

The decision was made to acquire the robotic cell based on the following criteria: pro-duce a consistent quality prod-uct while minimizing human error, minimizing lead times,

and allowing the company to be more responsive to repre-sentatives and customers.

Currently, there are no plans to include more equip-

ment like the robotic cell, but those plans could change in the fu-ture.

“There is al-ways the possibil-ity of adding more equipment similar to the cell as the

company grows and pushes for quality and process im-provement,” said product de-signer Justin Harvey.

The total investment of the robotic arm, work cell, and MotoSim Software and training was approximately $350,000.

Quarterly Newsletter

MIFAB products to be used in historic mosque expansion in Middle East

C onstruction on the Shamiyah Holy Haram Expansion 3 project has commenced in the Kingdom of

Saudi Arabia. The expansion will be adjacent to the Holy Haram Mosque, in the city of Makkah (Mecca), the location of Kaaba where all Muslims direct their daily prayers from around the world. The 250,000 meter2 expansion will feature a wide breadth of MIFAB®

products in it’s interior, as well as the exterior. The following products were specified for construction on the mosque: F1100 floor drain, C1100 floor cleanout, R1300 scupper roof drain, R1200 roof drain, R1930 roof drain vent cap, R1940 roof drain downspout nozzle, BV1000 access cover, and WHB water hammer arrestor. Other MIFAB products specified for the project include interceptors, hose bibs, and trench drains. “We fought very hard for this project,” said Middle East Regional Sales Manager Ihtesham Ahmed. “There were issues with product origin and warranty, but luckily we were able to exceed the specifications and win the project.” Ahmed worked with various engineers from the Saudi Binladen Group to get MIFAB products specified. The supplier for products was Modern Times Technical Systems located in Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It is reported there is no limit on the cost for the project. The Shamiyah Holy Haram Expansion 3 project is slated to be completed in 2015.

Michigan university makes use of MIFABMIFAB products were recently

installed in Oakland University’s new Human Health Building in Rochester, Michigan.

The Human Health building, which houses the School of Nursing and the School of Health Sciences, is built on a once faltering wetland terrain. Instead of disrupting the terrain, site engineers and contractors decided to restore the area, and incorporate green building initiatives throughout the site.

MIFAB supplied C-10 C-Port products on the Green Roof, as well as drainage products throughout the

project. Stainless steel promenade deck drains were chosen for the outside roof deck for appearance and to uphold the outside corrosion conditions.

All of the inside floor drains and cleanouts were stainless steel except in the mechanical room. Since it is a science building there was concern about chemical errosion, therefore the stainless steel product was recommended.

MIFAB products were sold by Quality Water & Air in Troy, Michigan to Macomb Mechanical Contractors, which acted as plumbing subcontractor for the building.

Customer Service Corner

“Product Configurator”The product configurator is locat-ed on www.mifab.com on each product page. The configurator helps determine the correct prod-uct number sequence to aid in finding the correct part numbers within Kwik Order.

Teaching contractors/whole-salers to use this funcion will allow you to key P/Os more efficiently and accurately. The configurator can also be used to up cross-sell and up-sell additional options or determine option availabiliy.

Submittal pages can be dow-loaded straight from the configu-rator page with the specifications and options that were checked off.

Reps and Sales Managers can request additional information on the product to be sent directly via email.

Product News and Updates• The MIFAB Floor Sink Bills of Material (BOM’s) are updated to reflect the (-9) Hinged Grate option is now only offered in stainless steel (-3).

• Kwik Order has been upgraded to accommodate the use of Apple iPad®/iPhone® products. The site offers full functionality via the iPad/iPhone, to include: sales order entry, amendment, shipment, RMA entry, inventory availablitliy, invoice query, order status and more. To access the Kwik Order system enter the address below from your web browser.http://remote.mifab.com/appfinityweborder/

• MIFAB has replaced the A1-C2 high rough-in membrane clamp with the A1-C1 low rough-in membrane clamp on all floor drain products. All Bills of Material, List Price Books and online specification sheets now reflect this change.

• The new 2013 Trench Drain catalog (TD-2013) is now available for order from CSRs or to download online at http://www.mifab.com/Library/MIFAB_Trench_Drain_2013_Catalog.pdf

New marketing materials available in 2013 MIFAB is slowly beginning to unveil

new marketing and support materials for representatives and customers.

As the year progresses, representa-tives will notice more literature is being released. Instead of only using one big book for the entire line, each product cat-egory will have its own literature piece in addition to the price book. The first prod-uct categories to have literature in 2013 will be Trench Drains and Trap Seal Prim-ers, as well as Beeco® Auto-matic Control Valves. These l i t e r a t u r e pieces will join the cata-logs for Access Doors, No Hub Couplings, Counterline, etc. as stand alone product literature and be accessible in PDF form on the website behind the Customer Ser-vice link at the top of the page.

“Having different catalogs for each product category is something that our

representatives have asked us to provide so that they can focus on specific products during each sales call,” said MIFAB president Michael Whiteside.

Another thing representatives can expect in the near future: expanded tradeshow material offerings and support. The first phase of tradeshow material creation includes MIFAB branded pop-up banners and BEECO branded pop-up banners. These materials will be available

on a “rent “ basis by representatives. Future banner offerings will include designs for each product category.

Finally, MIFAB unveiled MIFAB University, a YouTube® website. On this site, representatives and customers can access product training vid-eos that are filmed at the corporate office. The product training videos can be used to educate new reprepresentatives on the product line, answer questions for plumb-

ers and contractors, or serve as a refresh-er course. The videos are viewable at:www.youtube.com/MIFABUniversity.

Any material requests should be sent to Kristin Bailey, marketing coordinator, at KBailey@mifab.com.

“Too many different products in one catalog makes it harder for

the customer to notice all of our various product lines.”

MIFAB hosts dinner at OMNI

On Saturday, January 26, MIFAB hosted a dinner at Sullivan’s Steak House in Palm Des-ert, CA during the OMNI Buying Group spring meeting.

The dinner was a great opportunity for many of MIFAB’s wholesale OMNI buying group customers to relax in an informal set-ting away from the show hotel. The food was

OMNI show brings customers together

excellent, but the conversation was even bet-ter. Seventeen people attended the dinner in one of Sullivan’s exclusive private rooms.

MIFAB understands that our guests had multiple options to attend dinners with var-ious manufacturers, and we sincerely thank them for choosing to spend their Saturday OMNI dinner with us.

From January 25-29, OMNI Buying Group hosted its annual spring meeting at the JW Marriott Hotel in Palm Springs, CA.

The event was an excellent opportunity for MIFAB to meet with all of its strategic wholesale partners that belong to the OMNI buying group and discuss business plans for 2013.

During the meetings at OMNI, MIFAB offered a three percent immediate cash back promotion for any OMNI buying group customer that placed a purchase order at the show.

MIFAB would like to thank everyone who participated in this great promotion.

MIFAB will be offering the same promotion to its fellow wholesale buying group partners in April at the WIT meeting in Dallas, TX, and at the AD meeting in November in Orlando, FL.

The new year has brought new changes at MIFAB.

Since October 2012, five new faces have joined the MIFAB team. Bud Hansen was hired as Operations Manager, Jeremy Cantor as National Sales Manager, Kristin Bailey as Marketing Coordinator, Greg Brown as Customer Service Manager and Michael Hoh as Warehouse Manager. Paul Lacourciere was also assigned the position of Eastern Regional Sales Manager, in addition to his title as Vice President, BEECO division.

“The right people in the right seats are critical to any company’s success,” said MIFAB president Michael Whiteside. “I am very excited to be working with such a capable management team and believe that this will lead to greater order fulfillment and customer service performance. Their collective strengths are a focus on responding to our customer needs in a professional and organized manner as well as drilling down into the details to ensure that we continuously improve our performance.”

Changes haven’t only occurred within the four walls of MIFAB’s office, there have been some changes on the outside as well. The signing of new agencies has occurred in four states. The new agencies are: TM Sales in Florida, Kingsway Marketing in Minnesota, Distributor Sales Inc. in Wisconsin, and Richmond Marketing Inc. (RMI), in Maryland, Washington D.C., and Northern Virginia. RMI also represents BEECO in Southern Virginia.

“Our reps are the life blood of our company,” said Cantor. “They are our sales force and the people who represent the face of MIFAB around the world. As MIFAB continues to grow so does our Representation Group force. I believe the addition of our four new rep group partners at MIFAB will only continue to enhance the quality of service our customers see around the country.”

One of MIFAB’s three core values, continuous improvement, is something that every department at MIFAB is working toward on a daily basis. With the addition of new representation groups, our customers will begin to see a new level service from MIFAB.

Personnel changes start off 2013 Agency president honored in CA

On Thursday, February 21, David Hutchins from Specification Sales received the Honorary Industry Award from the Pacific Southwest Distributor Association (PSDA).

The awards banquet was held at the Long Beach Airport Marriott in Long Beach, CA. The PSDA is affiliated with the American Supply Association. PSDA is a group of wholesalers, manufacturers, and manufacturer’s representatives, formed as a regional forum to allow these groups to share collective ideas and

support the plumbing distribution chain on the West Coast.

Hutchins has served on the Affiliate Board of the PDSA for the past 10 years. Hutchins is currently the president of Specification Sales, and has been with the company for 28 years.

Specification Sales has been one of the longest tenured and most successful sales representatives for MIFAB on the West Coast.

Specification Sales is based in Southern California in the city of Ontario.

David Hutchins

Agency Profiles “Thank you to Michael Whiteside,

Jeremy Cantor, Tom Lang, and the rest of the MIFAB family for giving Kingsway Marketing, LLC, another opportunity to represent the MIFAB product line in our market territory.

Unfortunately we parted ways approximately two years ago, and as we have been recently looking to grow our business, we pondered the possibility of partnering with MIFAB again. The answer

Distributor Sales Inc. started as an agency by John Knight in 2000 in Minneapolis, MN to be an aggressive, professional, and respected manufacturers’ representative agency in the plumbing industry. At its beginning, DSI served the Upper Midwest, with a territory that not only included the state of Minnesota, but North and South Dakota as well.

In 2010, DSI expanded their footprint in the Upper Midwest and started with a few lines in Wisconsin at the request of some manufacturers that they were representing in the Minnesota territory. In 2011, Keith Baumann, who now covers Northern Wisconsin and the Fox Valley, joined the agency and was the first full time

representative for DSI covering Wisconsin. In October of 2012, Randy Ziebell, who is responsible for Southeast Wisconsin, joined the agency to help with sales coverage in the state. This year, Rob Severson formerly with Stickler & Associates, joined DSI to help coordinate the sales efforts and is responsible for Southwest and Central Wisconsin. The three team members in Wisconsin bring 56 years of combined industry experience in the commercial and residential plumbing markets.

Distributor Sales has evolved as a sales agency over the years and has established a strong respected reputation in the commercial, residential and bid/spec markets of the industry.

for us was a resounding ‘YES, we want that line!’ As many representatives know, you want to sell a drain line which affords the largest opportunity for success at your company.

We want to aggressively seek the opportunities that MIFAB allows us, so again, thanks, and we look in the optimistic direction a company like MIFAB affords us for a long-term beneficial business relationship.” - Kevin King, president.

Beeco ACVs used in green initiativesSince the 1940s, Beeco, LLC, has established itself as one of

the first backflow manufacturers in the United States. Over time, the company has been re-engineered and modernized to meet evolving codes, standards and customer requirements.

Virtually every water supply system operating on a full 24-hour pressurized supply has a scope for pressure management. With water conservation and green initiatives at the forefront of the minds of contractors, engineers, and architects, Beeco® Control Valves are engineered to be more energy efficient.

Since leakage is driven by pressure, efforts that result in the reduction of water pressure will ultimately reduce leakage. Despite the known benefits that come from proper pressure management, relatively few water utilities and water system integrators around the world are implementing any form of pressure control.

If implemented correctly, pressure management can be successful in reducing leakage from existing and new burst pipes, as well as the frequency of bursts, extending the life of a water system. In certain circumstances, pressure management can also result in a significant reduction in the “normal” consumption as well having the hidden benefit of extending the lifespan of the system.

The Beeco Automatic Control Valve (ACV) is designed for pressure range optimization. The Beeco ACV has a higher range of operating pressure and can hold design operation pressure when flow is increased, as opposed to the common use of several smaller direct-acting regulators that lower pressure when more water is needed. One of the most recent implementations of Beeco Control Valves in 2012 was with the Valencia, CA based company, Clarke Sales. Clarke Sales is a system integrator of Back-flow Preventers and Commercial Landscape Stations. Clarke Sales was the first company in the US to implement a V-PORT station that eliminates the need to cut the water of a building in order to service a back-flow preventer. “Why are we shutting down water service, especially to buildings where water service is critical, such as restaurants, hospitals, schools, and clinical facilities?” Clarke asked. “It’s not necessary. Designers and engineers need to know there’s now a better way”. In Clarke Sales V-PORT stations, Beeco Control Valves are

installed at the backflow preventer station (rather than into the building); this lets the water customer have uniform (and lower) pressures at the needed flow rate, thus saving water and money, and increasing user satisfaction.

Beeco Control Valves including Pressure Reducing Valves, Pressure Modulating Valves, Electronically Controlled Valves, and more, have been successfully used around the world in Pressure Management projects. Beeco Control Valves are the only control valves in the marketplace with stainless steel internal parts as a standard. This feature makes them corrosion-proof and suitable for harsh water conditions, ultimately increasing the lifespan of the control valve. By combining a dual backflow assembly, ACV regulator, and other components into one fully redundant valve station, contractors will eliminate the need to designate a room for certain components. The assembly also eliminates the need for a continuous high-pressure main line from going into various buildings containing their own set of regulators. Pressures at the backflow assembly and, in turn, pressures in the mainline throughout the facility, are reduced. The contractor and the end user will not only save water but also energy, maintenance, wastewater and money.

Texas firm scores big with University Health System“We at Steve Mechler &

Associates have been working on the University Health Sys-tem Hospital project for over 3 years. The architect and en-gineer were both out of our area, so we had no inside track on the original specifications. Gary Harris, MIFAB Regional Sales Manager, made a call to the engineer of record to get us in the loop.

We had at least 10 jobsite visits with the general contrac-tor, mechanical contractor, and the A/E firms, with at least five different mock-ups.

The main reason we se-cured this contract was our strong tie with the mechanical contractor. We cannot stress this enough.

While this has been a challenging submittal/mock-

up/order process because of the continual changes on size, MIFAB’s engineering, fabrication, and order department have done a yeoman’s job on this.

We have been given almost impossible deadlines for draw-ings and sample fabrication, but we have handled it quite well. I believe that no other drain manufacturer, since none have

in house fabrication capabili-ties, to my knowledge, could have done this. All told, we will be well over $300,000 Net of stainless steel trench drains of various lengths and configura-tions.

If the contractor relation-ship was not there this would never have happened.”

-Steve Mechler, Steve Mechler & Associates,

San Antonio, Texas.