A.R.E. complex makes caps, lids for new pickups and older models
By Jim Mackinnon
Beacon Journal business writer
Published on Sunday, April 10, 2011
Richard Reynolds sprays the exterior gel coat into a mold in the first of several steps involved in making a fiberglass truck cap at A.R.E. Truck Caps & Truck Accessories factory in Massillon. (Mike Cardew/Akron Beacon Journal)
Jerry Seitz is seeing a pickup in early spring sales at his Medina business, A Better Truck Cap & Hitch, which sells fiberglass caps and covers made by Massillon manufacturer A.R.E.
That’s unusual, said Seitz, who owns four stores in Northeast Ohio.
“There’s really been a strong demand,” he said. Normally, people think about installing caps, tonneau coversor lids in the fall to protect items placed on pickup truck beds from cold, foul weather, he said.
“This March, I was totally amazed [with high demand],” he said.
And that's also good for A.R.E. and the hundreds of people it employs.
As the economy improves and pickup truck sales increase to such people as contractors, plumbers and carpenters, so does demand for its aftermarket products: high-end, customized caps and covers that increase the utility and security of the vehicles.
Most of the units made daily by two shifts of workers at the privately owned company are already sold — A.R.E. takes orders from its 600-dealer nationwide network.
The main 256,000-square-foot plant and headquarters where about 500 people work is off Nave Road Southwest in Massillon; a smaller 108,000-square-foot factory with 100 employees sits in Mount Eaton. (The company name comes from the family of co-founder Sal Gatti — “A” is for daughter Ann Marie, “R” is for son Ralph and ''E'' is for daughter Elizabeth.)
From start to finish, it takes about eight hours to make a cap or cover for a truck, said Brian Law, 38, a 17-year employee in sales who also gives factory tours.
The company stocks about 750 molds that take up room on two stories from which its caps and covers are made. Each mold is good for about 150 “pulls” or products before having to be refurbished for use again, Law said.
The company can make products for trucks going back to the 1980s.
“If it’s a 1982 Chevy, more than likely we'll have only one mold up there, one for a lid and one for a cap,” Law said. “So if somebody still has a 1982 Chevy, we can still build a product for it. We don’t want to be just current trucks only.”
Still, most of the demand comes from people who just bought a new truck or have a newer vehicle, he said.
Each cap and cover gets its own work order form that follows it from the time the order is taken through the end of the manufacturing process, Law said.
“There will probably be 80 different people touching this particular cap from start to finish,” Law said. The work order, also called the production card, provides all of the needed information at each step of the way to ensure the cap or cover is made exactly as the customer wants, he said.
“That production card is a very valuable thing to have, to follow the process through,” Law said. “I tell people that a production card is like a Bible on Sunday. It’s got everything in it that you need.”
Much of the manufacturing is labor-intensive, with employees at some steps under time pressure to quickly finish their work before sprays and fiberglass start to cure and get too hard to work with.
A customer will have his or her cap or cover on their truck within seven to 14 days of the order being taken at A.R.E., he said.
An A.R.E. engineering group measures truck dimensions — often traveling to Detroit to examine not-yet-released vehicles — and then programs the dimensions into computers that are used to do the design work.
Products range from entry-level caps and covers to more elaborate and costly ones. The intent is to combine aesthetics while still having the functionality of a truck.
A.R.E.’s website allows people to customize the cover and cap with numerous options that include such things as interior lighting, walk-in doors, sliding, screened and vented windows, linings and more.
The company also makes use of online social media such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and blogs in its marketing.
It also has increased its public exposure by creating custom vehicles used in television shows, such as the A.R.E. Exterminator truck, a custom 2010 Toyota Tundra, used on the reality show Verminators and the 2008 GMC Sierra A.R.E. TWISTEX Probe used to follow tornadoes in the Discovery show Storm Chasers.
The most recent creation is the 2011 Ford F-150 [Football] Hall of Fame Project Truck that the company displayed at the annual Cleveland Auto Show that ended in early March.
A.R.E. does not release sales figures.
But Bryan Baker, director of marketing, said it is about the same size as its largest competitor, with each company having about 30 percent of the market.
“We’re one of the top two,” Baker said. “We know we're neck and neck with our main competitor.”
Seitz at A Better Truck Cap & Hitch said prices for A.R.E. products typically range from $795 for a basic lid to as much as $1,600 for a high-end cap. About 90 percent of the business is selling and installing caps and lids on new pickup trucks, he said.
“We’re fortunate to have a company of size like that here,” he said of A.R.E.
The caps and covers give pickup trucks additional functionality, Seitz said.
“You’ve got no trunk. So you put the cap on,” he said. “Seventy five percent of [the reason for a purchase] is security and convenience of carrying cargo.”
There’s an added benefit to outfitting pickup trucks with a cap or a lid, Seitz said.
“They do help gas mileage,” he said.