New leadership emphasizes culture at Aries Industries

Aries Industries designs and builds equipment for the inspection of video tubes.

Last updated on November 21, 2019 at 2:27 pm

Aries Industries Inc.
550 Elizabeth St., Waukesha
Industry: pipe inspection and rehabilitation
Employees: 100
ariesindustries.com

In cities and towns In the United States, thousands of kilometers of storm pipes and sewer pipes help enable the convenience of modern life. If something goes wrong with this infrastructure, flooding and sewage protection can quickly replace this convenience.

To avoid or correct these problems, it is often necessary to know where the problems are in the pipeline. The equipment from Aries Industries Inc. is ideal for this.

The Waukesha-based company designs and builds video inspection and rehabilitation systems, primarily for the storm and sewage markets. The company manufactures individual tractors that transport cameras through pipes and equips trucks and trailers with all the equipment crews required to operate the cameras. Customers include municipalities, contractors and dealers.

“It’s mostly sewage and rainwater, so it’s not the most glorified, beautiful, and sexiest kind of business,” said Jim Kraschinsky, vice president of sales at Aries. “We’re attacking the market the best we can from every angle, with an emphasis on dealers and contractors.”

Kraschinsky joined Aries last summer, not long after Larry Brown assumed the office of President and CEO.

“It’s a very strong market, especially now when you are talking about aging infrastructure,” said Brown, adding that Aries is competing in a large part of the market, providing equipment for a variety of pipe sizes with different cameras and both inspection at the same time as well as inspection offers rehab tools.

Brown has an emphasis on developing a corporate culture that focuses on a collective “we” attitude, addressing problems rather than blame, and delivering a great customer experience.

“We felt that if we can create a culture that works like this, we will win in the market with our customers and it will also be a place where people want to come to work and when they are here they will I want to stay, ”said Brown.

It’s one thing to outline the principles of a corporate culture, but it’s more important to ensure that it exists within an organization. According to Brown, Aries strengthens its culture by constantly communicating with employees and leveraging their ability to play a role in the company’s success.

“What you do makes a difference here,” said Brown. “At our size, you touch customers, you touch the customer experience every day.”

The equipment that Aries builds is designed to fit through pipes as small as six inches and travel more than 1,000 feet with the remote control.

“These bodies contain highly developed electronics that run in sewer pipes. It has to be waterproof, ”said Kraschinsky. “And then a lot of these contractors and municipalities may not be as gentle with them when they walk in or out as they might, should be and things break.”

When things go wrong, in addition to its Waukesha operations, Aries has sales and service centers in California, Georgia, and Ontario to help customers.

Kraschinsky said the company recently invested in its customer service center to improve phone call handling and ensure customer issues are resolved.

“We didn’t have any data for customer service. How many people called? When did you call? What did you ask? “He said.” It’s easy to throw people at it, but we had to figure out which calls (coming in). Are they parts orders or technical support? We had to figure that out to get the workforce just right. “

Another investment that has been made in recent years is the company’s own machine shop. With the ability to manufacture parts on-site, Aries engineers can quickly create new parts and use them for products they are working on, rather than waiting for a shipment to arrive.

“We’re very excited about the changes we’ve made here at Aries,” said Brown.

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