Getting Organized In Westborough Leads To Growth | Systematics Inc. can get 10 pounds of stuff into a 5 pound bag
The folks at Systematics Inc. in Westborough were pretty excited the day I visited.
They had just finalized a merger agreement with National Office Systems Inc. (NOS) of Maryland, more than doubling the company’s size and moving it into markets where opportunity abounds. Not bad for a company started slightly less than 30 years ago in an apartment in Marlborough.
Systematics and NOS do the same thing. They design, engineer and distribute storage systems for an enormous array of businesses and industries.
Stored Away
What may look like a wood paneled wall in an office could, with the touch of a button, open to reveal a neatly organized filing system. These retractable systems move on tracks in the floor and take up about half the space of traditional filing shelves.
The systems are very popular with schools and colleges, which use them to maximize and organize space in libraries and museums.
Systematics works with several manufacturers to get cabinets for virtually any use, including climate-controlled systems for sensitive artifacts. Each system is custom designed and installed by the company for each client.
Before the merger, Systematics was the biggest such distributor in the Northeast, and NOS was dominant in the Mid-Atlantic region. Execs from each company figure the combined firm is the largest of its kind in the United States.
With its headquarters in Maryland, NOS does a lot of work for the federal government. Both firms see great opportunity in the health care industry.
“If you’ve got a room full of files, and you can turn it into a surgical center,” that’s an advantage for a health care organization looking to become more efficient, said Tom Schaefer, Systematics' president.
He should know. His father started the company in 1981 while the family lived in New Jersey. He would commute to Marlborough on Monday, run the business and drive back to New Jersey on Friday.
The company grew out of its apartment in Marlborough into bigger and bigger office and warehouse space until it moved into its facility off Otis Road in Westborough about seven years ago. There, it occupies about 15,000 square feet of office, warehouse and light manufacturing space where the floor rails used by its storage system are fabricated.
Schaefer joined the company full-time in 1991.
High efficiency, space-saving storage systems are only part of the deal, though. The company uses RFID, that’s radio frequency identification, to help companies track what they store in those systems.
Joseph Alvarez, principal with NOS, explained that an RFID system will automatically track “assets” as they’re moved around a facility. For a law office, it helps with organization. In a national security situation, that capability is even more important. And just like the storage systems themselves, RFID chips can be customized for any client’s security or tracking needs.
Of course, in this line of work, the three gentlemen I met with have seen some pretty interesting stuff. Alvarez recalled working on a project for the FBI. In a closet, he saw two cardboard file boxes marked “Unibomber” and “O.J. Simpson.”
He asked, “That’s not what it says it is, is it?”
The response from the FBI man was, “uh, yeah,” Alvarez said. “And they were right there, the sweatshirt and the gloves just in a couple of Xerox boxes,” he said.
Working with a local antiquarian organization, Schaefer got a peek at the first book to come off a printing press in Colonial America.
Dan Harbison, president of NOS, said he worked with Walter Reed Army Medical Center and saw literally thousands of glass microscope slides containing samples of brain tissue dating back to the Civil War.
Got news for our Industrial Strength column? E-mail WBJ Managing Editor Matthew L. Brown at mbrown@wbjournal.com
Watch as Tom Schaefer explains what his company, Systematics Inc., does:
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