MEMBER PROFILE - Midwest Scale Company

PIONEERING IN ELECTRONIC WEIGHT INDICATORS AND SCALES

Midwest Scale Company

Midwest Scale Company joined the Rockford Chamber of Commerce 57 years ago.

Founded in 1956 by Morey Debo and Bob Kennedy, Midwest Scale found a flourishing industrial market for their accurate mechanical scales of all sizes. Pioneering the development of electronic weight indicators and the electronic counting scale, this Rockford company became a reliable resource for sales rentals and repairs.

New leadership celebrates five years

Utkarsh Doshi moved to Illinois from India in 2002. He earned a master’s degree in aerospace engineering in 2004 and worked in various manufacturing operations until 2017 when he decided acquire a business of his own.

“I was looking to invest in companies that were either in manufacturing or service, and that’s when I came upon Midwest Scale,” he said.

When Doshi needed to bring on an experienced operator he could trust to handle the day-to-day operations, he already had the perfect candidate in mind.

Doshi had been plant manager at a food packaging company where he worked with Jim Olejarski, an experienced engineer in the food and pharmaceutical industries. Today, Olejarski is chief operating officer at Midwest Scale.

“As an engineer, I find this work interesting,” Olejarski said. “There’s always a challenge. I can take care of people’s problems and remain customer service oriented.”

Continuing the family tradition

“What attracted me to Midwest Scale is that it was a family-owned business that had been in business for several years, and the last family owner was looking to retire,” Doshi said. “When I spoke to him, he told me that he wanted to sell it to somebody who can keep the company going. There was a lot of family pride, and he wanted to sell it to somebody to take care of the business. We wanted to make sure the business continued, that the employees were happy and that our customers were satisfied.”

Midwest Scale has roughly five on-site technicians, an office manager and the leadership team.

Evolving to meet challenges

The company is seeing significant growth in the industry and has taken on a lot of new customers.

“We’re looking at adding another vehicle to give us some more flexibility on how we do jobs,” Olejarski said.

Despite their successful track record, not all customers understand the scope of the company’s capabilities.

“It’s important for our customers to know all the things we can do. Often, we can send a technician out to repair a scale, but it’s also our job to let our customers know that we can rent or sell them a new one as well,” Olejarski said.

Like many companies, Midwest Scale has been affected by supply chain issues, but they have adjusted to be proactive about maintaining parts and product in inventory.

“We’re prebuying. When we know that lead times are going to be long, we’re increasing our inventory to keep a buffer so we can repair or replace a customer’s product right away.”

Rockford is home

A transplant from Buffalo, New York, Olejarski heaps praise on Rockford as a good place to bring up a family and how that plays into attracting and hiring staff.

“I raised a family here,” he said. The Rockford Park District is fantastic. My daughters came up through the Rockford Park District hockey program, along with softball, and moving into the club team environment. They went to Boylan—great schools. The region has a lot to offer.”

Doshi sees the advantages of Rockford from a business perspective as well. “When I looked at Rockford geographically, I felt like this is the next biggest hub. It’s conveniently connected to Chicago but just far enough away. So it’s the best of both worlds. We’re not competing with businesses in Chicago, but we’re also near the largest hub in the U.S., so we have a lot of accessibility. With a college and a trade school here, I feel like Rockford seems to be the right place to invest in a business in the long term.”

For more information about Midwest Scale Company, call 800-521-0857 or visit them at www.midwestscale.com.