In search for new product ideas, Skol is opening its doors to inventors
By Mike Drummond
For more than 20 years, Skol carved itself a niche manufacturing light fixtures for prisons.
Making lights functional yet inaccessible to inmates is imperative for prison and civilian safety, a fact recently underscored by the increasing problem of convicts smuggling, hiding and using cell phones in the slammer. In at least one episode, an inmate arranged the assassination of a witness. Other reported crimes linked to prisoners with mobile phones have prompted states and the federal government to restrict cell phone coverage at penitentiaries and increase penalties for possession of the devices.
Convicts are, by nature, crafty. Texas officials found 78 cell phones welded inside an air compressor being delivered to one lockup.
While Skol, a Chicago-based sheet metal fabricator, has found prison lighting to be a steady business, the ongoing recession and contraction of manufacturing has compelled the small company to think outside the poky.
This year as part of a larger effort to make eco-friendly fixtures, the company launched its Green Roof Ultra Clean Edge, a product for rooftop gardens on new and existing buildings.
Now, Skol is opening its doors to inventors. Like many companies, it hopes to find new products with the help of open innovation.
“The shift in the economy has forced most businesses to reevaluate,” notes Andrew Shykofsky, Skol’s director of business development.
All of Skol’s 15 employees have worked at the company for 20 years or more. Shykofsky is a newcomer from the solar industry in California.
“I thought maybe the metal fabrication business wasn’t focused on going green,” he says. “I thought we could pioneer something here and see what happens.”
While there are signs the economy is thawing, domestic manufacturing remained in a deep freeze this year.
The Federal Reserve reported this summer that the nation’s industrial output operated at 64.6 percent of capacity. That means manufacturers were producing at more than a third below their potential – the worst rate since they started keeping records on this in 1948.
Want more bad news? Since the start of the recession in December 2007, U.S. manufacturers have shed more than 1.9 million jobs, according to the U.S. Labor Department. There were 14.9 million total unemployed as of June.
New Thinking, New Opportunities
Chicago, as it turns out, is the nation’s capital for green roofs. Mayor Richard Daley began the city’s green roof initiative earlier this decade after he saw gardenlike roofs in Europe.
Green roofs are generally composed of a low-maintenance, drought-resistant plants. These roofs typically are less than four inches thick. Some are be planted directly or laid down as pre-vegetated mats, others use modular tray systems. Green roofs can absorb up to 60 percent of the rainwater that falls on them, alleviating run-off contamination in storm drains, streams, lakes and oceans. Green roofs also can help lower ambient heat in urban areas.
In addition to Skol’s green push, the company also is looking more aggressively for new products from inventors.
Skol hopes to build on the success it had with a directional cooling fan for dairy counters – a product an inventor submitted to the company several years ago. Skol wasn’t looking for new ideas from outside its walls, but the experience has whetted its appetite.
“The inventor had great big plans,” says Shykofsky. “He had prototypes and really worked hard to perfect this thing. We’re very optimistic about it.
“We don’t have the mindset to create these types of things. We’re not inventors,” Shykofsky adds. “But I think I have a good sense of assessing marketability. We would love to have a regular stream of people sending ideas to us.”
Skol is a good example of a traditional company approaching the down economy as an opportunity – a chance to seize new markets when others are hunkering, waiting for the storm to pass.
Yet fortune, as the Roman poet Virgil noted, favors the brave.
“You have to have faith,” Shykofsky says. “When you look at it historically, times like these end. And when they end, there will be a strengthening of the companies that are doing what we’re doing.”
Skol Search
Skol is looking for products that involve some sheet metal. New innovations can include electrical components, which the company can assemble. It prefers energy-efficient or green products.
Skol at a glance
Founded: 1945
Location: Chicago
Owner: Ray Skol
What it does: Custom sheet metal fabrication and assembly
Employs: 15
Revenue: $2 million a year
Web site: www.skolmfg.com
Did you know?
At Al Johnson’s Swedish Restaurant
is Sister Bay, Wisc., the roof is covered with grass. In 1973 the owner began grazing goats atop the restaurant and continues to do so every May through October.
