Rapid Prototypes Fills Vital Niche

(For a PDF list of Northwest Arkansas’ largest packaging specialists, click here. For a PDF list of printing and graphic services, click here.)

Buyers at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. don’t have voicemail.

“The phone keeps ringing until someone picks it up,” said John Bishop, national sales manager for 3M Co. of St. Paul, Minn.

“It’s no secret buyers are so crunched for time and when things come across their plate, they have to deal with them quickly.”

For some of those pressing issues in Wal-Mart’s need-it-yesterday culture, a five-person company based just blocks away in Bentonville serves an invaluable role.

Since its founding in 2003, Rapid Prototypes has enjoyed 30 percent annual revenue growth. It is yet another example of how the entrepreneurial spirit in Northwest Arkansas has been inspired and thrived thanks to the opportunities to meet the needs of more than 1,200 suppliers selling goods to the world’s largest retailer.

Bishop and 3M are just one of the 30 to 50 suppliers Rapid Prototypes touches each month, working with everything from clamshells to corrugate, and a recent experience with a Wal-Mart buyer’s request is a story all-too familiar to owner Kyle Jack:

Nearing 5 p.m. on a Wednesday, Bishop, who oversees office supplies and stationary for 3M, got a call from his buyer with the preface of a “great opportunity” followed up with the qualifier that it was a “big challenge.”

Those two often go hand-in-hand, and this time was no different. The buyer needed Bishop to help him select the items to fill out a particular display over the phone and have the actual product displays in Wal-Mart’s layout center by Friday morning at 9 for executive examination.

“How am I going to pull that off?” Bishop said.

The buyer told him to call Rapid Prototypes, and the displays were ready in time.

“That makes me look good and it makes the buyer look good to their management,” said Bishop, whose company sells hundreds of items to Wal-Mart.

“Having that local capability to crank that stuff out can really help with leading to a positive decision in a buyer’s favor.”

Just five years ago, that kind of turnaround would have been nearly impossible.

Standard procedure was for a supplier to relay Wal-Mart’s request to their corporate headquarters, where it would then be shuttled off to a subcontractor and shipped back to Bentonville.

The whole process could take as long as two to three weeks.

That, said New Creatures Inc. CEO Patrick Sbarra, was unacceptable.

“The magic of the moment would be lost,” Sbarra said.

Showroom Solutions owner Mike Couture and Sbarra, a free spirit who attends rock ‘n roll fantasy camps in his spare time, started Rapid Prototypes in response to constant requests for “one-off” prototypes from their supplier customers.

Sbarra said local marketing and packaging companies like New Creature, Kendal King Group and Juiced Creative just aren’t set up to be in the prototype business.

“It would be like going to Ernst & Young when all you need is TurboTax,” he said.

Sbarra and Couture hired Jack from A&B Reprographics and made him general manager, but by the end of 2004 the two realized Rapid Prototypes needed to be spun off into an independent company.

“They wanted it to be separate from their companies so we could serve the entire market independently,” Jack said.

New Creature is still Jack’s biggest source of referrals, but Rapid Prototype’s independence has earned an essential level of trust between him and his often-competing customers.

“Our other clients don’t feel that tension or concern that there would be trading information or something like that,” Jack said.

“We don’t cross that barrier. Never have, never will. We want to be a tool for the entire packaging industry in the area whether it’s Juiced, Kendal King or Smurfit-Stone. They are all our customers and we do work for all of them.”

 

What Wal-Mart Wants

Along with the vendor community, Jack is on the front lines when Wal-Mart starts making moves and he noted two major trends he’s seen in the last year.

In Wal-Mart’s well-publicized sustainability drive, Jack said pallet displays are being shortened by three inches. The simple move not only saves customers on material costs, it also allows double-stacking displays on trucks and cuts shipping costs in half.

Jack has taken his own sustainable steps and converted his materials to 98 percent recyclable.

He’s taken out non-recyclable adhesives and laminates and the plastic resin of the ink he uses comes out when the corrugate is being recycled.

He bought a $500,000 digital flatbed printer last year that has expanded production capability while simultaneously lowering costs, improving efficiency and reducing materials consumed.

Jack said an average ticket at Rapid Prototypes is around $500, but large projects with a full room of displays and signage will run into five figures. Some sales are as little as $25 if a customer just needs a piece of foamboard.

“They know they can come here for the little things, so they’ll come here for the big projects,” he said. “Fostering relationships is so important because certain suppliers are very category specific and you might only see them one time in 9 or 12 months.”

Wal-Mart’s goal to ingrain its “Save money. Live better” mantra into the consciousness of consumers is even working on Jack, who has seen numerous projects come through his door from vendors seeking to incorporate the slogan and Wal-Mart blue into their displays.

“As the economy looks right now, there’s more people shopping at Wal-Mart to save money, live better,” he said.

“Obviously it’s working. If you go in a store right now, it’s becoming more consistent. You see that ‘Save money. Live better’ everywhere and it’s that consistent blue, consistent look throughout the store.

“That’s what they are pushing for. It makes for a better shopping environment. It’s more pleasurable for the customer and makes Wal-Mart look like a higher-end retailer.”

At its annual shareholders convention in early June, Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott fielded a question wondering if Wal-Mart, which has seen strength in affluent demographics lately, would lose those upper scale customers when the economy improves.

“No,” Scott replied emphatically. “Our stores are different.”

Jack has seen it firsthand from the beginning.

“What they’re trying to do now is keep those higher-end customers there when the economy turns back positive,” Jack said.

“They want to keep them shopping at Wal-Mart. Their timing is really good. It’s on Wal-Mart’s side to become that higher-end retail look in a time when they are the commander of the low-end prices.”

 

Success Story

For Sbarra, who has been recognized himself by Entrepreneur magazine, the most satisfying moment wasn’t realizing a financial return when he and Couture sold Rapid Prototypes to Jimmy Greene and Jack.

Jack bought out Greene last year to become the sole owner at age 30.

“The biggest pleasure we got out of it was putting a young entrepreneur into business,” Sbarra said. “That was fantastic. We weren’t waking up thinking about it first thing. We were thinking about our own businesses.

“Kyle was putting in 80-hour weeks and the best way for a business to survive is for the guy sweating over it to own it.”

Even with such a tremendous need for the kind of service Rapid Prototypes provides, it is still the only company in the area with the capability.

That comes as no surprise to Sbarra.

“Why is there only one Rick’s Bakery?” Sbarra said, referring to a popular Fayetteville constant since 1980. “Why are there so many Mexican restaurants? Why is there only one Ghazi’s [Pesto Café] or Bordino’s?

“Because it’s hard work. The cost of entry is a commitment in time and dollars. That’s why you see fewer owner-operators and more Johnny Carino’s and Carrabba’s.”

For Sbarra, it’s all about the oft-discussed “Wal-Mart effect.”

“It gets back into all the manners of the Northwest Arkansas entrepreneurial spirit,” he said. “If it wasn’t for the University of Arkansas and Wal-Mart brining in all these people from all over the country and world, there never would be a Rapid Prototypes – or all this sushi.”

Jack admitted his business does consume him, often to his wife’s amusement when the couple is shopping at Wal-Mart.

“I don’t see the product as much as I see the displays,” he said. “I’ll be sitting there feeling the display, looking at it and she’ll say, ‘What are you doing?’ That’s what happens when you’re in this business.”

Jack said the most satisfying part of his business is the handshake at the end of a project when the customers know they’ll be able to put their best foot forward to a buyer.

On the flip side, Jack sees scores of items that never make it to Wal-Mart shelves.

“When one does, it’s very satisfying to see it go all the way,” Jack said.

Even though “rapid” is in the name, Jack said he typically doesn’t charge rush fees unless it requires after hours work that costs him overtime wages or simply time with his or his employees’ families.

“I try not to do that because I don’t want to kick someone while they are down,” Jack said. “I don’t want to hurt them because they are getting an unreasonable request from their buyer. I don’t want them to have to pay for it.”

With an attitude like that, in addition to the vital service Rapid Prototypes provides, it is no wonder suppliers like Bishop from 3M sing Jack’s praises.

“I can’t say enough good things about him,” Bishop said. “Kyle is customer-focused and does a nice job.”

Bishop’s experience sums up perfectly why Jack has adopted “When you need it now” as his company slogan.

“We think of ourselves as the emergency room,” Jack said. “You don’t think of it until your arm is broken and you don’t think of us until your buyer says, ‘I need 14 of these to fill up my modular tomorrow.’

“That’s where we come in.”