Pentz's high-tech customers need to get their products out on the market fast, because the life cycles of their products have been continually shortened in recent years, says DeOme. Pentz can respond, changing drawings and patterns in a day, if necessary, thanks to a recently installed CAD/CAM system, getting a product to market within a month after its final conception. It can also respond at any level of demand. Says Pentz: "I was asked by one customer, 'At what volume does it become uneconomic for you to cast a part?' I told him, 'Less than one.' " Pentz has one customer for whom he made a mold, and then cast all of two parts.
One of Pentz Design's challenges is to convince customers that sand casting is not as dated and low tech as many perceive. Bill Hunt, chairman of Huntron Inc., of Mill Creek, Wash., made that leap of faith. Huntron makes machines that test solid-state circuitry; precision is vital. He heard about Pentz and thought he'd give sand casting a shot. "I was dubious. I didn't believe he could do it." Then the first casting came back. It met the specifications. "The castings since then have been incredible," says Hunt. "The foundries I know of around here haven't come close to what he's doing."
By now, Pentz has grown used to getting calls from desperate and disgruntled companies looking for higher quality. "They usually spend the first 10 minutes telling me their horror stories."
A medical electronics company came to Pentz with a flawed casting. Pentz quoted it $24 for each piece. "I asked them, 'Am I in the ballpark?' They said, 'Yeah, you're close.' " When he got the mold, Pentz noticed it lacked several features that the cast part had. Where was that? Oh, said the customer, we had that machined in afterward -- for $85 apiece. Pentz was amused. His bid was for a casting that included those features. No machining was needed. He was proposing to save the customer $85 per part.
Pentz's largest customer is Intermec Corp., a maker of bar-code equipment in Everett, Wash. Intermec came to Pentz with a part machined from a piece of aluminum at a cost of about $75. Recalls Intermec's Darryl Carver, an industrial designer: "I suggested, 'Why don't we try sand casting?' Everybody said, 'No one can do what we want." Pentz gave them a sand-cast part at $30. Impressed, Intermec started turning over more intricate pieces to Pentz -- to be made by the supposedly cruder method of sand casting. After Intermec, renowned for its exacting standards, signed on with Pentz Design, the company's sales jumped by 500% in one year.
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Pentz Design may turn out flawless castings, and Larry Pentz may have a knack for fixing any machine he can get his hands on, but now there has come this inevitable problem of growth. Much of the value an artisan brings to his company is invested in himself. Its limits are defined by his skill and energy. What happens when sales rise 500% in one year? What happens when the energy is tapped out, when skill is stretched thin?
It is late on a February day, and Larry Pentz is sitting at his desk, the winter darkness outside having long since gathered. Pentz draws a breath and says, "I've hardly been able to keep it together. I've bitten off a lot, and it's come back to bite me. I've created a monster."
Pentz goes over to his drafting table nearby and retrieves a large piece of paper on which he has neatly charted financial data. In December 1989 accounts receivable jumped to $278,000, and that same month Pentz maxed out its line of credit at $150,000.
What options does Pentz have to ensure the company a future -- when every choice now seems to carry obvious risk?
One choice is to keep the company growing. Pentz sees that as almost inevitable. In fact, he welcomes the prospect because he sees it as a way out of the cash-flow bind. His customers, though, are leery. "He has to be careful about taking on more of a workload," says Alaska Diesel's Dick Gee. "Those of us who were in early with him want to be sure he maintains the quality and the delivery time."
One way to solve the growth issue is to make a second and logical choice -- hire more skilled and dedicated people. But how available are those people? Pentz's latest hire, CAD operator Lance Wheeler, closed down his shop because he couldn't find enough qualified workers. Michael Ochoa, founder and president of Precision Technology Inc., in nearby Woodinville, a machine shop that does finishing work on some of Pentz's parts, adds: "What Larry does is almost a lost art. People of the quality Larry needs are people who have their own businesses. And if they don't, they should."
Even if Pentz does find the right people, others wonder if he can make another necessary choice -- delegate. "I'm not sure that's possible, given his personality," says Intermec's Carver. Carver says Pentz is obsessive about his work; stepping back is not in his nature. "It may take some external force to get him to step back. Larry might even have to work himself into a health problem before he changes his ways."
Now and again, Pentz considers the ultimate choice -- selling the business and devoting himself to sculpture. His customers dread that prospect. "That's the kind of thing that makes you wake up in the night in a cold sweat," says Dick Gee. On the other hand, no one is losing sleep just yet. Larry Pentz, they believe, senses what they see. Pentz has created value by being there. He is not the type to walk away and watch that value diminish.
"I know that if I had stock in his company and suddenly Larry wasn't there, it would be worth much less," says Carver. "I think his knowledge is transferable, but the energy, dedication, and sense of customer contact he brings to the business is not." Pentz Design, for better or worse, has become simply an expression of Pentz himself. It is a one-of-a-kind creation -- not mass produced. An artisan company. The uniqueness that limits Pentz Design's future may also ensure it.
