A construction efficiency success story

Construction is not a game of inches – not by a long shot.

Rather it’s more like a contest to see who can whittle their tolerances down to the nearest millimeter or less. At least that’s the intent of Portland, Oregon’s Acculign Framing Inc., a five-year-old company that markets and sells the world’s only mechanically adjustable cladding support system.

Using a simple, three-axis system of gears, the company’s precision hanger allows an installer to precisely adjust the position of a piece of cladding once it is secured to either an interior or exterior building wall. It’s a leap forward, says company founder Andre Duranleau, over old methods of installing and adjusting bulky concrete, wooden or metal cladding.

“I used to install high-end claddings on interiors of retail stores,” Duranleau said. “And in doing that, it’s a very painstaking, long process to get everything dialed in and perfect.”

Over more than a decade in the business, he had grown used to an installation process often exceeding three months from initial framing to final adjustment to customer standards.

“A lot of that process is taking the panels off, readjusting cleats and modifying a lot of stuff until it looked the way it was supposed to look – how the client wanted it to look,” he said.

Competition set Duranleau on a course to invent and patent a new way of getting the job done. And, crucially, his new invention would demonstrate the ability to save contractors up to 75 of the time formerly spent on cladding jobs. A 75 percent reduction in time spent on a job means significant savings financially.

“The goal was to have zero punch,” he said, explaining how a friendly competition evolved at his former company to see who could complete jobs in the shortest amount of time. “I achieved it a couple of times, and it was very competitive between the groups. We came up with tricks and ways to manipulate the framing to achieve it as fast as we possibly could.”

During a break from work one year, Duranleau started thinking about how the job could be done faster. In his home workshop he came up with a sort of adjustable hanger that used gears and screws to allow micro-adjustments of cladding panels. It’s the kind of thing Duranleau does for fun. But this time it worked out a little differently, producing six separate patents recognized in 13 different countries.

“We didn’t call it anything at the time,” he said. “But that started the ball rolling in 2011 with the first garage prototype.”

To understand the current success of Acculign Framing Inc., which is now a globally established company with a client list containing some of the biggest names in commerce, know that the current team of Portland natives in charge of the firm has remained largely unchanged since those early days.

One team member is Ben Horn, a graduate of Oregon State University and the company’s global business development manager. Horn was on board with Duranleau from the start and present when the prototype emerged from the garage.

“I had seen drawings of it, and it’s a total Frankenstein’s version of this present model,” Horn said. “But it did the same basic function.”

“It was much more intricate; it had gears,” Duranleau responded. “We weren’t thinking about the price. We were just thinking about making it happen. I still think I have one of the gears as a paperweight.”

From there, the basic idea was refined and a working model made ready for manufacture in the company’s North Portland warehouse.

“We brought it to companies we were working for and they liked it,” Duranleau said.

“The most funny part of the story,” Horn laughed, “was when Andre takes the Frankenstein to day one of a job build – it’s with a Fortune 500 company with lots of retail – and the development manager immediately ordered 200 hangers. But they only had the one prototype. And that’s what set everything into motion.”

Further product evolution followed as more companies discovered the firm. A big break came when a global electronics company with a fruit-themed brand – the company demanded official confidentiality – selected Acculign’s products for use on stores around the world. That relationship came as a result of Duranleau’s experience in building over 30 retail stores for the company.

“Our first few years, before half the people joined our team, we were working fairly exclusive for one client, doing projects all around the world,” Horn said. “That was a really fun, wild ride, and also challenging being one of the smallest companies in the world working for one of the biggest companies in the world.”

From the beginning, the company has not only functioned as a manufacturer, but also a construction firm specializing in using its own products to install cladding for larger commercial projects. The latter is a business the company would be happy to shed, Acculign President Bridget Saladino said.

“Every one of the biggest cladding manufacturers in the world are pushing agreements at us,” she said. “You could do an entire Starbucks facelift in a weekend. That’s a perfect sort of scenario for us. These high demand, high profile, high traffic areas can’t go down for three months.”

Saladino said that Acculign, as a small company with one established client, had to put in extra work to gain recognition.

“We realized that our message, which is 75 percent faster and a lot cheaper, wasn’t getting traction outside of our biggest client that already believed in us,” she said. “All the general contractors had never worked with it before and didn’t believe us. So, ultimately, we had to start our own construction company, and now we’ll bid jobs for 50 to 75 percent less. It’s shocking. Our blessing is our curse; we get it done so fast that no one believes it.”

The company has gone from $2 million in sales in 2016 to more than $25 million in 2017. Similar growth is expected in 2018 if the company is able to keep up with demand.

“Things are moving really quickly,” Horn said. “It’s been a really fun, exhausting, wild ride. We’re entering year five and our team has doubled in the past two months. For a startup success story we’re pretty proud and excited.”

Panel suppliers have been looking for ways to increase their market, said Brewster Crosby, the company’s chief financial officer.

“On the architect side they’re always kind of hungry for ways to increase their design range,” Crosby said. “And the market, as it slowly progressed, people started playing around with vertical panels and suppliers realized there’s a huge market there, billions of dollars’ worth, and the architects are like, ‘Look at the flexibility this gives us.’”

Locally, Acculign will soon be working on the expansion of Terminal E at Portland International Airport. There’s plenty more to come.

“Talk to us again in a year and we’ll have two or three projects done in Portland,” Horn said.