A Look Inside the Un-Factory

Trini Linares and her four daughters cherish family vacations. Warren Weisberg is less enthusiastic. When the Linares clan travels en masse to Mexico—as has happened a few times in the past do src="http://sitemanager.inc.com/lib/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/themes/advanced/langs/en" type="text/javascript"> zen years—Weisberg's factory crew declines 15 percent. "I don't like it, because that's a big part of production going away at one time," says Weisberg, a co-owner and vice president at PortionPac Chemical, a Chicago maker of cleaning fluids. "But we make do. They're a family."

For their part, the Linareses are always happy to return to the PortionPac factory on the city's Near West Side. The place feels less like a manufacturing plant than a combination greenhouse and family garage. Natural light spills through long skylights in the ceiling, nourishing the small jungle of plants that thrives, improbably, next to tanks used to mix chemicals. In summer, workers deflect the sun by unfurling beach umbrellas erected over their stations. Music and chatter bounce off the walls; the company's machines were designed to run quietly, in part to encourage conversation. "People know each other a long time, so it is good we can talk. It is a nice place, and we love being all together here," says Linares's daughter Rosa Ortega, who has worked at PortionPac for 15 years. (In 2009, the company had turnover of 2 percent. Average tenure for the company's 84 employees is 13 years.)

Multiple family clusters work in the factory, and it's obvious why parents recommend the place to their children and siblings recruit siblings. Requests for personal time are always honored: Ortega cobbled together her own sporadic schedule during the year her 3-year-old son battled cancer, and she worked four-day weeks the following year to accommodate his ongoing therapy. Out of respect for family life, PortionPac never runs three shifts, even during its busiest season. A few years ago, at the workers' request, it ratcheted quitting time back to 3:30 p.m. so parents could get home earlier to their kids. (The shift now starts at 7 a.m. instead of 8 a.m.) There are no production quotas, and employees switch off tasks regularly, keeping tedium at bay. Once a year, executives and managers spend a day laboring in the plant, looking for ways to make the work easier.

For PortionPac the employer, the focus is on the men and women who mix chemicals, seal bags, and build boxes in its 29,000-square-foot plant. For PortionPac the brand, the focus is on janitors, who are the end users of the company's products. PortionPac makes liquid cleaners; its goal is to replace the dozens of bottles and sprays cluttering custodial supply closets with two or three staples in color-coded, portion-controlled envelopes. It was the first company to hold classes on safety and effective cleaning for janitors in its primary markets (schools, office buildings, and prisons) and the first to hire a national education director targeting custodians' needs. PortionPac also runs recognition programs to help businesses celebrate their cleaning staffs.

Chairman and co-founder Marvin Klein points out that cleanliness affects areas as varied as student performance in schools and productivity in offices. "It all depends on janitors, who have been ignored and abused by society, with no concern for their health or working conditions," says Klein. "The word janitor comes from the Roman god Janus, who was the keeper of the keys. Historically, cleaners were honored. They were trusted. We want to go back to that." On the practical side, says Klein, "if you work in a building where you know who the janitor is, you are going to create less dirt."

Years ago, PortionPac commissioned two Diego Rivera-esque paintings of janitors in the acts of mopping, polishing, spraying. Customers of its recognition programs receive prints of those works; the originals hang in Klein's office. "Janitors are part of the hidden work force," says Klein, indicating the painting behind his desk. "If you treat them well, give them respect, they are more productive, and the whole economy benefits." PortionPac benefits as well: The company's revenue was up 8 percent in 2009, and is approaching $20 million.

Promoting the nobility of janitors is just one of PortionPac's causes. The other is sustainability. Its products come premeasured, which prevents waste. Because they are concentrates, less energy is expended for packaging and shipping. Janitors reuse the same spray bottles and mixing containers over and over.

Unlike the industry's recent converts, PortionPac traces its green roots to the era of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring rather than Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. The business was founded in 1964 by Klein, an executive at a company that made floor-cleaning machines, and Syd Weisberg, one of Klein's vendors. Weisberg was an inventor and ardent environmentalist; a startlingly contemporary brochure he wrote in 1972 describes threats posed by nine types of pollution, including the greenhouse effect. He created detergent concentrates to curtail the waste generated by shipping a product that is 90 percent water.

Warren Weisberg, Syd's son, is also adept at making things. Warren, who became Marvin Klein's partner when Syd died in 1975, designed and built all the manufacturing equipment in the factory. (Klein's son Burt succeeded his father as president a few years ago.) More recently, Weisberg built a machine that automates the filling and sealing of the portion-controlled envelopes. But he scrapped it after deciding he trusts humans more than machines to perform quality control. Also, machines don't need jobs.