Equipment all in one place

The showroom lines all this equipment up so it’s ready as needed, creating benefits for CPG customers, OEM partners, and Frain’s own operations. Central to that is the new level of organization it affords.

“We’ve never been able to organize equipment by OEM; we were scanning location markers and placing machinery wherever it would fit,” says Woodrick. “That was a big purpose of this showroom, to be able to showcase everything that we have from ADCO, and then everything that we have from Pattyn, and so on.”

Since all of Frain’s inventory of OEM equipment is organized in one place, it also acts as a de facto selling floor for the company’s OEM partners.

“Many of the OEMs don’t have all this machinery on their floor,” explains Woodrick. “Sometimes a customer wants to touch, feel, and see the equipment, so the OEM can bring their customer in here and show them. Even if it has nothing to do with the rental, they’re welcome to bring customers in here.”

Bridging the lead-time gap

One of the biggest benefits of the showroom and rental model it supports is the flexibility it enables for CPGs, even if a direct order for a new piece of OEM equipment is already in the works.

“Because of the long lead times that OEMs have, what are you going to do while you’re waiting for a piece of equipment? We fill that gap,” says Steve Kuhlman, director of sales and marketing at Frain.

That same availability can also help CPGs to cut back on risk when scaling for a new product.

“New products fail quite often. Rent [the equipment], test it out, get your permanent piece if it’s going to work,” says Kuhlman.

Frain even has customers who return each year for the same equipment on a seasonal basis. One manufacturer rents a bagger and scale system to handle extra holiday demand for their product and returns the equipment once the season winds down.

It also works as a backstop for the unexpected.

“We’ve had people whose metal detector went out, and they couldn’t ship without their product going through it. Production that was supposed to be shipped out that day was sitting, and they had no room for it, so they could rent a metal detector,” Woodrick says. “We’ll have people jumping through hoops here, because we know how important it is for customers to be able to get their product to market.”