LEWISTON — After experiencing a 72 percent growth in sales last year, Modula is gearing up for an even bigger 2019.

The high-tech storage company has signed leases for 110,000 square feet of additional space, more than doubling its size, and plans to add up to 30 jobs by the end of the year, CEO Antonio Pagano said.

It’s been both a boon and a challenge, he said.

Modula, globally headquartered in Italy, makes automated vertical storage units that stretch up to 54 feet and bring down specific items on a tray system as they’re called for — car parts, pharmaceuticals, anything used in manufacturing.

Customers include Amazon, Johnson & Johnson, Coca-Cola and Ford.

“It’s been a pretty nice year, but when you have such a growth in such a short time, it’s very difficult to manage it,” Pagano said Tuesday.

In 2018, Modula grew by 30 employees to hit 100 and expanded from one work shift to three. Employees produced 380 of the highly automated units, which cost an average of $100,000. They made 220 units the year before.

The Lewiston factory serves the entire U.S., Canada and Mexico markets. Each unit is made to order.

The company came to Alfred Plourde Parkway in 2007, when System Logistics bought the former Diamond Phoenix. Modula was part of System Logistics at the time. In 2014, the two companies split, Modula stayed, and in 2015, it invested more than $10 million in manufacturing technology.

“In September 2015, we were able to produce the first unit completely made in the USA,” Pagano said.

Modula is in the middle of a $3.5 million investment in a new production line inside its existing 85,000-square-foot factory space. At the end of 2018, the company signed a lease for 45,000 additional square feet down the road and recently signed a new lease for 65,000 square feet in Southern Maine because it couldn’t find enough additional space locally.

Pagano said the leases are a temporary solution; the company will assess its long-term options later this year. He said it didn’t have any plans to leave Lewiston-Auburn and he has been happy with the area.

“The problem we’re having is the same one everyone is having in Maine,” Pagano said: not finding enough employees.

Modula’s gotten creative, partnering with NTI and Adecco last fall for a six-week manufacturing class that paid participants $10 an hour to learn. They hired six people from the graduating class and Adecco found work for the other four.

A second class is planned for later this year. The company is also pursing an apprenticeship program with the University of Southern Maine to give its current workforce a chance to move up within the ranks.

They’re also planning a tour for high school students to show what they have to offer and the work that can be done with or without a college degree.

The starting wage at Modula is $16 an hour, according to Rhonda Corson, human resources manager.

Ironically, the challenge of finding workers has also been partly behind the company’s growth: One of the selling points is needing fewer people to operate the automated storage machines than are needed at a traditional warehouse.

With savings from labor, the need to lease less space, fewer injuries from eliminating the need to reach or climb and tighter inventory controls — units are accessed by a password or badge and items are tracked to specific jobs as they’re taken out — Pagano said most customers experience a return on investment in 18 to 24 months.

The forecast for 2019 calls for building 500 units. With the new leases, he said, they’ll have the capacity to build 1,000.

“The plan in the near future is to use this factory also to produce for all of Latin America,” Pagano said.

Beckie Conrad, president of the Lewiston Auburn Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, called the growth “a tremendous endorsement of our community’s asset as a national leader in innovative manufacturing.”

“Our infrastructure can continue to support more and more development and we are pleased and grateful to enjoy the kind of investment that Modula is making here,” she said.

kskelton@sunjournal.com

Modula CEO Antonio Pagano in the Lewiston facility where the company is planning a major expansion. (Sun Journal photo by Russ Dillingham)

Modula CEO Antonio Pagano in the Lewiston facility where the company is planning a major expansion. (Sun Journal photo by Russ Dillingham)

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