Arlington Puts Charge into Custom Efforts

When you think of manufacturers and Scranton, Pa., the first one that comes to mind is fictional. Everyone knows Dunder Mifflin of The Office fame. But custom integrators are also becoming more familiar with Arlington Industries, whose massive real-life Scranton offices run far more smoothly than that of TV’s favorite paper company.

The electrical industry products manufacturer was founded in 1949 and over the years has made multiple moves and expansions, to where it now resides in a warehouse that covers five acres. It began as mainly a die-cast fittings maker and still makes more zinc die-cast line items than anyone else in the market, but now also produces many of the non-metallic fittings, conduit, blocks and boxes that go unsung in your installations.

“We basically focus on everything that goes on behind the walls,” says Joe Sullivan, Arlington vice president, operations.

And the company is looking for more than a few good integrators who are seeking some alternatives for their wiring solutions. Sullivan says that Arlington will likely ready 30 to 40 new products this year (encompassing more than just the A/V industry) and update its catalog right around the time frame of CEDIA, where it has increased its presence and will exhibit again this year.

In recent years, Arlington has held custom residential A/V education and training sessions for its customers and sales staff looking to branch into that market, and Sullivan says the company has prided itself on dealer feedback. It’s led to products such as Arlington’s recessed TV box, which allows installers to connect cables behind a mount in a manner that lets the TV hang more flush with the wall.

“We’re known as one of the more innovative electrical companies out there, not just with products, but with responding to market needs. We don’t take every suggestion, but we listen to dealers and see where new products can fit,” says Sullivan. “They’re always looking for products that are time-saving, money-saving, come from different angles — with the recessed TV box, installers were asking, ‘Can you get plugs in that much closer, to mount flat-panel TVs that much closer to the wall?’ So we did. It’s all about making the life of the installer easier.”

A tour of Arlington’s vast warehouse underscored the multitude of ways the company works to do that. Plant 1 is mostly dedicated to manufacturing, and Plant 2 to warehousing and shipping.

Photos: Arlington Puts Charge into Custom Efforts

In all, Arlington has more than 1,400 active SKUs, and with 20 other stocking warehouses throughout the United States and Canada, “one of our hallmarks is that we have 99.5 percent of orders filled and shipped within 72 hours,” says Sullivan. Plant 2 is filled with more than 6,000 pallet spaces (kept remarkably tidy), and that doesn’t include those that can be found piling up in aisles and at the loading docks.

Around 145 plastics projection-molding machines and roughly 40 die-casting machines reside in the warehouse, with zinc die-cast products still accounting for more than half of Arlington’s business, Sullivan says.
It also helps that Arlington has its own UL testing facility in its quality control labs where it can certify products that pass the rigors of being stretched, crushed, yanked and soaked, among other things. The last thing integrators need, after all, is another truck roll because a plug got pulled out.

Another key area of the warehouse is a small room dedicated to designing and modeling prototypes. A half-dozen engineers are employed, and it’s common for a product cycle to take six months and several iterations to get from concept to being sold, Sullivan says. Using gypsum and laser etching, the engineers can craft prototypes at the warehouse for scrutiny and tweaking before finalizing a product.

As Arlington brings more custom residential dealers on board, it will continue to tweak for what’s going on behind installation walls. “That’s the biggest reason for growth in our business,” Sullivan says. “We try to make things better, and we’ve built up our business through customer service. We try not to forget that that’s where the bread is buttered.”