Alago's key innovations lie in his machines' compactness and simplicity. His standard panel-cutter is a metal frame about 8' X 5' X 2' fitted with a series of circular blades that are pneumatically forced against the fabric and a hardened roller. The circular blades do lengthwise slitting; a razor knife fastened to a carriage does the crosswise slitting. The machine is more adaptable than most competing models, and can easily perform such additional tasks as running in conjunction with an auxiliary stitcher. "I stay ahead of my competitors by keeping it versatile and almost maintenance-free," says Alago. "The most expensive part [on the panel-cutting machine] is worth about $250. If I started making them more complicated, I would be working against myself."
Bedding-industry insiders increasingly associate Alago Manufacturing's name with quality. The only components made by outside contractors are the electrical control box, which sets such variables as quantity and speed, and the power-drive units. To ensure greater quality control, Alago is preparing to manufacture everything in-house. Sometime this year, he says, he will hire an electrical engineer to make the control boxes. "The parts my company makes itself never have any problems," says Alago, "but sometimes, when I plug in a new machine to test it, poof! Smoke starts coming out of the control box. I'm not going to tolerate that anymore."
Alago has also begun to design and sell a diversified line of machines that make a range of consumer goods, such as pillows and curtains. One model he has introduced cuts panels with either a straight or a pinked edge, then stacks finished panels and winds the surplus cloth into rolls -- features not usually found in one machine. Another invention is a device with robotic fingers that counts and stacks panels that have been quilted by hand.
Murray Safier, president of Canvas Specialty Co. of Glendale, N.Y., a maker of warehouse and moving supplies, recently installed Alago's robotic devices in his factory. "I used to have 10 girls doing that," he says, pointing to a row of five busy machines, each one operated by a woman. "Now I have 5 who produce the same number of units. The man has doubled my production." Like many customers, Safier often calls Alago on short notice, either to ask him to inspect an existing machine that is not working properly or to make a machine to handle a specific problem.
Walking across the crowded and dusty factory floor to a quilting machine, Safier relates an example of Alago's talent for ad hoc engineering. "This machine was falling apart, shaking like a 90-year-old lady, a lousy bag of bones," he says, resting a hand on a web of needles, thread, gears, and pistons that is about half the size of a compact car. "I was on the verge of getting it completely overhauled for about 10 grand. But first I called Eddie, and told him to try something. He comes over, spends maybe five minutes with it, says it's no problem. He goes back to his shop and makes these special brackets for it, to stop it from vibrating. Now it runs like a bat outta hell. He charged me 50 bucks for the parts and nothing for the labor."
Alago sells his machines through sales representatives scattered across the United States and overseas. Although his salesmen are experienced sellers of various brands and types of heavy machinery, he frequently goes out in the field to push his products himself. Currently, he is setting up a network of contacts in Southeast Asia, a hot spot in textile-related industries. "There's quite a bit of fabric being produced over there," says James Bennett, an economist with the International Trade Administration in Washington, D.C. "Capital investment is picking up, and there's a good market over there for [fabric-cutting] technology." Alago meets foreign businesspeople and government representatives at trade shows, and his salesmen initiate contracts through letters and telephone calls. He has sold seven panel-cutters in Puerto Rico, and recently sold one to a company in Singapore. Companies in Taiwan, the Philippines, and Israel have sent what he says are promising "nibbles," and the Saudi Arabian government just brought a machine, adapting it to make the national flag.
Alago's main strengths are salesmanship and engineering -- not, he admits, day-to-day management. He does, though, have a flair for managing people. He gives Angel Rios, for instance, his machinist and childhood friend, a percentage on prototypes in addition to salary. "I worked very long hours one month," says Rios, "so I decided to figure out what I was being paid. It came to 25? an hour." But Rios, who once fought alongside his boss in street gangs and still helps him chase down the occasional thug, wouldn't have it any other way. "Ed's got something here, and I'm glad I'm part of it."
Drinking red wine over a dinner of rice and beans in his middle-class home in Queens, Alago recalls his upbringing in near-poverty. "My father died when I was in high school, so it fell to my mother to raise me. She wanted me to be special, and pushed me to succeed. Every morning before she went to work, she would give me a little moral lecture, trying to get the difference between right and wrong into my head." He says many of his friends turned to robbing stores; some were jailed, some killed. His career goals were different. "In school, my favorite subject was art, believe it or not. I've always been happiest making real things from ideas. Someday, I'd like to get out of the daily operations of my business and spend all my time on pure research and development."
Rep. Robert Garcia, a Democratic congressman from the South Bronx, represents a district that has become a national symbol of urban decay. To him, Alago is one of the "unsung heroes" of American business. "Ed Alago is an example of some of the raw talent that exists in Williamsburg, or places like Harlem or the South Bronx," he says. "It's a credit to him that he accomplished so much on his own. There are many decision makers who don't realize how many people like him are out there. They can be a potent political force through their example."
Alago, scornful of politics and uncomfortable in the role of inner-city hero, subscribes to the existential principle that a man should be known by his actions. "I don't like to belong to any group," he says, "because it takes up too much of my time, and I don't like owing anybody any favors. You improve society by first improving yourself. I love my country, but I can't stand it when these activists tell me to get involved in their causes. I get into arguments all the time with relatives who tell me I should do more for my people. Baloney. What the hell do they mean by 'my people'? My people is me."
