Local service, expansive support at Hi-Tec

The ability to serve customers with flatbed laser, laser tube, and large-format torch/plasma/drill cutting has given Hi-Tec Profiles a competitive edge in Regina. Image: Hi-Tec Profiles

Hi-Tec Profiles Inc. is a locally owned Saskatchewan-based company established in 1995, with locations in Regina and Saskatoon. It is one of Western Canada’s leading providers of steel processing services, including profile cutting and bending technology.

The company expanded its operations to Saskatoon in 2021 with the purchase of another company’s fabrication operations, which is always tricky. How do you meld two cultures and build the confidence of those who worked for the purchased company, ensuring you keep the legacy value—the people—of that purchase? As company President Trent Meyer explained, it’s a matter of patience and paying attention to staff needs.

Early on, Hi-Tec primarily served the agricultural industry. As the firm expanded, management put forth a plan for further growth and investment.

A turning point for Hi-Tec was when it decided to offer staff the opportunity to invest in the company. By enabling staff members to have a greater stake in the firm, Hi-Tec could purchase new equipment and, in turn, create a personally dedicated team.

The company has consistently demonstrated a commitment to forward-thinking, being an early adopter of laser technology, for one.

In 2011, private equity group PFM Capital bought into the company via its SaskWorks Venture Fund, an evergreen fund for the investment in businesses that are owned or operated in Saskatchewan with a focus on encouraging industry growth and company succession, among other benefits to the province.

Meyer was hired in 2018 as a partner when the former president stepped down after his planned seven-year term was complete. At that point, Hi-Tec was already in expansion mode, having purchased a competitor across the street from its original facility in Regina. Meyer wanted to get a sense of the company’s current customers and potential customers, so he contracted with a customer experience firm to conduct a voice of customer (VOC) survey.

“We asked questions like, ‘Do you know that Hi-Tec has a tube laser?’ And we asked about future needs, such as what other services we could provide,” said Meyer. “One of the things that was mentioned was waterjet cutting. A lot of manufacturers … there are certain products they want waterjet-cut as opposed to using other methods, and we were missing out on those or sending them to third parties.”

The survey also inquired about locations. As Meyer noted, the company’s Regina location generally serves south Saskatchewan, but it revealed a disconnect with customers in and north of Saskatoon.

“Customers know that our Regina facility can do big jobs for them, but businesses in Saskatoon wanted a local relationship,” he explained. “As much as they don’t mind materials being shipped from Regina, they wanted to be able to get rush jobs done closer to home.”

The purchase of a local company in Saskatoon not only broadened the company’s client base but also brought with it the ability to offer other services such as waterjet cutting.

In 2021, an opportunity for Hi-Tec to enter the Saskatoon market arrived with the purchase of the fabricating assets of Metal Shapes. Meyer said the company owner’s passion was rooted in design.

“They do art installations and public furniture like park benches and bike racks, as well as other highly detailed work. They were using the job shop to serve their needs, but the highly competitive job shop world was never their passion,” he explained.

Since Metal Shapes was a family business, selling to a private equity-backed firm like Hi-Tec was worrisome for the Saskatoon-based fabricator.

“We wanted to position ourselves as an acquirer of choice,” said Meyer. “A lot of people in our space are owner-operators. If it’s not family working in the company, everyone is like family. We have one employee whose dad worked for the company, and even though he’s only turning 36, with summer jobs included, he has been 20 years in the business. So, we wanted to be able to say with confidence that we’ll treat their people right. Although we are part of a private equity firm, it’s not stereotypical in that it’s designed specifically to grow industry and community in the province. It’s still profit-focused, of course, but the right thing to do might not mean the most money in the shortest time. Long term, it’s how do we retain and develop our business, employees, and customers.”

The key people who worked for Metal Shapes are still with Hi-Tec, and the business’s number of employees has more than doubled in three years. Hi-Tec’s Regina facility, meanwhile, has grown to nearly 100 team members.

Currently, Hi-Tec has nine flatbed lasers in Regina, including four newer Mitsubishi fibre lasers, one of which was recently commissioned. It’s second Regina-based facility houses a BLM tube laser and two large Kinetic torch/plasma/drill combination cutting tables—one 50 ft. by 10 ft. and the other 30 ft. by 10 ft. These combination tables not only perform conventional CNC oxy/plasma cutting, but they also perform drilling, milling, countersinking, and tapping from the same gantry.

“We added equipment all through COVID,” said Meyer. “We’ve done what we think are the right things to be able to support our customers, and we hope that they will continue to support us in return.”

Between the shops in Regina and Saskatoon there are about 11 press brakes. The Saskatoon shop includes a flatbed laser, a router, a waterjet table, and a CNC mill.

“I would like to add more machines to the Saskatoon facility, but our space is very tight right now,” said Meyer. “We are considering options to expand our footprint. But as you can see by the array of machines we have at that facility, it opens opportunities with the router and waterjet, options for our customers that we couldn’t offer before.”

The company works in material ranging from 6-in.-thick to 18-ga. cold roll and stock sizes ranging up to 72- by 228-in. plates. Specialty plates range from aluminum, stainless steel, QT, and AR in various grades. For the waterjet, the company often inventories client-specific materials including UHMW, Garlock, stone, brass, copper, and more.

Currently, Hi-Tec has nine flatbed lasers in Regina, including four newer Mitsubishi fibre lasers, one of which was recently commissioned.

When asked about the secret to managing the purchase of the Saskatoon location, Meyer said “patience.” He noted that the Regina and Saskatoon locations have always operated with a customer-centric, “get-things-done” mindset, but the differences in company cultures are inevitable.

“The real challenge was getting people in both locations to accept that maybe we do things a little bit differently in each location,” said Meyer. “In Saskatoon, they have a slightly different client base and different equipment. They have different finished goods, so it stands to reason that they’d have a slightly different process. So, we try to be patient and not to force change too quickly.”

At the same time, some management approaches were adopted immediately.

“We looked for things that would improve the lives of employees, the experience of customers, or our relationships with vendors,” said Meyer. “If it was going to be meaningful in one of those, we implemented it immediately. If not, it could wait.”

Another key was employee safety and productivity.

“We don’t make money repairing forklifts,” said Meyer as an example. “We buy a new one if that machine is too old and is breaking down. Down equipment is possibly one of our biggest costs. When I arrived at Hi-Tec in 2018, we had a fleet of mostly older CNC machines, and they were great and mostly reliable, but only reliable because we knew them. We almost always had one that was down. But what happens when the older operators who know these machines start to retire? We started replacing equipment, and it made everybody’s life better.”

Meyer also didn’t want to change anything that was psychologically important to the Saskatoon team.

“Sometimes you don’t know how you’re affecting a person’s day-to-day life,” he noted. “For instance, when we purchased the company, we maintained the same coveralls supplier because that was something that had value for the team in Saskatoon. If I could have, I would have embedded myself in the Saskatoon location for longer to catch other elements like this. Because of COVID, this was a challenge. I might have changed some things sooner and others more slowly. It’s important to understand how changes alter the workplace. But ultimately, the local suppliers who have relationships need to be retained if possible—we don’t want to stop to pick up a dime and miss the dollar bills that come from retaining and growing the team that is already in place.”

Change is necessary to create efficiencies, of course. Currently, the company is in the process of implementing a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that will properly and fully cover both locations.

Meyer considers the addition of the Saskatoon location a great success story.

“Our speed of response is high,” he said. “Going back to the get-it-done culture at both locations, if we have a laser go down, we don’t phone a customer and say we can’t deliver; we just work harder on the other machines and do all we can to not make it our customer’s issue. Being in Saskatoon, we can do rush orders for those clients in that shop, and we can back up that service with capacity in Regina.”

The goal for Meyer to is create other satellite operations in Alberta or B.C., building a local market presence while offering large-capacity delivery options from its Regina headquarters.

“I think it’s a model that can work in the right markets for us,” he said. “And again, if shop owners see that we are investing to grow rather than simply hollow out operations, we suddenly become valuable to the seller and the broader community they serve.”

Editor Robert Colman can be reached at [email protected].

Hi-Tec Profiles, hitecprofiles.com