Apollo Plastics Good Product, Efficient Process And Strong Market Keep Spa Business Bubbling

A pollo Plastics is a study in efficiency.

When it was originally founded in 1988, the spa manufacturer and retailer had just one store on East Trent and a small factory at Airway Heights. Now, the company has 10 stores in Washington, and a new, larger plant at Spokane Industrial Park.

The company produced about 600 spas in 1989 - this year Apollo should make about 3,000. That’s in addition to turning out 120 jetted bathtubs per month.

Despite this growth, the company employs a total of just 72 people. That includes salespeople, plant workers, everybody.

“We’re pretty lean and mean,” says Steve McDonald, a partner in the company and manager of the SIP plant. So lean, the entire production crew McDonald oversees is just 37 workers strong. That averages out more than 80 spas and bathtubs a year for each worker.

McDonald, 43, joined Apollo Plastics - more widely known by its trade name, Apollo Spas - in 1989. He replaced partner James Pritchard, who started the company with president Colin Taylor. McDonald’s job is to get the most out the plant staff by optimizing steps in the manufacturing process without giving an inch on quality.

To accomplish that, he says being accessible is paramount. On a typical day, McDonald is right in the thick of things, walking amidst factory commotion. He talks about his ideals as telephones ring, machines clang and hand trucks go whizzing past.

“We’re pretty hands-on,” he says. “We always have been.”

To get the most out of workers, he says, a manager has to be there alongside them every day. It’s the employees, he says, that trouble-shoot the manufacturing process.

By being open to feedback, McDonald learned to consolidate tasks. Plant workers don’t just turn the same bolt all day. That helps spare them monotony, too.

“We all wear a lot of hats,” McDonald says.

That’s something McDonald has done himself throughout his career in the fiberglass business. An entrepreneur at 24, he started a fiberglass company with his brother in 1977. That company produced bathtubs and other products. In 1978, he started a second venture, Pilgrim Canopy. He sold Pilgrim in 1980.

McDonald then went into the fiberglass satellite dish business before buying into Apollo.

What appealed to him about Apollo was its all-in-one approach. The company doesn’t just keep overhead down by having a small staff. It also by manufactures, distributes and sells its own merchandise.

“There’s no middle man,” he says. “We do it all from start to finish.”

Apollo’s spa products range in price from $1,600 to $4,900. The company determined that is the preferred price range for people in this market.

“We don’t want go get to the point where you pay as much for a spa as you do for a car,” McDonald says

Although the company doesn’t publicly announce profits, McDonald says Apollo’s 1995 sales are ahead of where they were last year.

The company plans to open two more stores this year; a third Spokane retail site and a Coeur d’Alene site, its first outof-state venture.

Well, sort of. Currently, Apollo ships products to destinations as far as Peoria, Ill. But McDonald says those go to past customers who bought their spas in Washington and have since moved.

“After years of enjoyment and use, the consumer is still happy. When that consumer sells their house, that same consumer comes in and buys another one.”

That kind of customer feedback is why McDonald loves manufacturing. Unlike some businesses where money is made just by moving funds around and investing, McDonald’s ventures have always resulted in tangible products.

It’s “taking something out of nothing,” he says. “Putting a lot of different components and a lot of different processes together and having a product that a consumer wants to buy. There’s a lot of satisfaction in that.

“I think all business people enjoy that feeling more than money, more than anything else.”

Add that kind of enthusiasm to Apollo’s in-house system of manufacturing, distribution and sales, and a little efficiency goes a long way.

“We do all three and control our own market,” McDonald says. “That’s what has helped us expand as easily as we have.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo