Plainville is an unfortunate name for a town so rich in unusual manufacturers, particularly those along Woodford Avenue not named General Electric.
Consider Nickson Industries. The 40-year-old manufacturing firm specializes in building many of the devices used to install or repair the exhaust systems of cars and trucks.
The 38-person employer occupies about 100,000 square feet at 336 Woodford Ave., a century-old brick building that over its life has housed an explosives maker and a builder of eyeglass frames.
But Nickson’s products are more commonly found than those other items. As a matter of fact, if you’ve had your car’s exhaust system serviced at a Midas recently there’s a “very good chance” that some of the parts in it were made right there in Plainville, said Cavid Connole, company controller.
“Our claim to fame is that we make basic stuff, but we make it very well,” he said.
Well that’s at least one claim to fame. The other is that Nickson is probably one of the largest stand-alone manufacturing shops on the street. Most of the others are clustered in a very large former factory about a third of the mile down the road, namely the Plainville Industrial Center at 161 Woodford Ave.
To many of Plainville’s old-timers, it’s still known as the TRW Building, the name of the former factory that years ago was converted into 64 smaller retailers, restaurants, and manufacturing businesses.
None of them are plain, either. Most laymen would be hard-pressed to figure out what exactly some of the stuff built in these small machine shops actually does.
Take for instance the products made by Stylair. The two-person manufacturer builds devices that filter and dry compressed air, which are commonly found in manufacturing facilities.
“Compressed gasses can have a lot of oil and water in them when they’re used, and our products filter them out,” said company co-owner Roger Kidwell.
B-To-B
Stylair’s filtering and compressing products are typically found in everything from spray paint makers to food manufacturers.
One of the benefits of being in a complex with so many small manufacturers is that tenants can often do business with each other, Kidwell said.
Although the company consists only of himself and business partner Pelly Esposito, Kidwell said his company relies heavily on outside manufacturers to help them build their products.
Some of them are neighbors who specialize in doing machine shop work, such as Edge Tool.
But others, such as Transit Systems Inc., have found a new market for their services by doing business with other vendors in the building.
Transit is a six-person, manufacturer that builds replacement parts for trains and buses. Their client list includes the MBTA in Boston, Metro-North Railroad, and most public rail transit systems in the Northeast.
The new floor for Boston’s Red Line, for instance, was built by Transit. So were the engine covers for the New Jersey transit system.
About five percent of the company’s business comes from outsourcing work done for companies inside the park, estimated Walter Lappen, one of the two owners.
“There are a bunch of machine shops here and we do business with a few of them,” he said.
It’s one of the advantages of having manufacturers for neighbors, he said, and one of the best aspects of being in the park.
Kenneth J. St. Onge is a contributing writer to the Hartford Business Journal.
