Business Plan

This plan is a work in progress - last update was July 16, 2007.

I realize that putting our business plan on our website might seem a bit risky as our competitors can also see what we are attempting to do. However, we understand that it's not WHAT we do but HOW we do it that makes all the difference. Besides, this business is so dang tough to do right that just being in this industry is a barrier to entry.

Alright, let's get to the heart of the matter...

Our President Gets Fired

Modern Industrial Structures began as an idea in the mind of Terry Williams in early 2006 after himself and his two crew members (Rick Lange & Marty Williams) were fired from a subcontracting job at Western Canadian Oilfield Structures, an industrial trailer manufacturer in Saskatoon.

The company which terminated Terry and the gang didn't last much longer than they did - lapsing into bankruptcy only one month after their departure. By now the boys realized that the industrial trailer sector was crying for new producers in western Canada and after 3 more months of in depth investigation into the potential of this field, Terry, Rick and Marty attracted Ray, Barry and Pat into the company and started planning for the future.

A Dream Becomes Real

Entrepreneurs have a way of ignoring reality.

And being entrepreneurs, we had no way of knowing how much money our first unit would cost or how long it would take us to build - and this was a good thing. With Terry, Rick, Marty and Ray "on the wall" - that initial structure began to take shape ever so slowly. Barry worked in the office to build the business even though it seemed at times like it would never come into existence.

Proof of our unconscious belief that our business would never see the light of day is evident in the dang name we gave it. Who, in their right mind, would ever call a business entity such a long and protracted name? If we had thought the process through and imagined the number of times we'd have to say our company name, we would have come up with something shorter. Thankfully, a few months later, the fellow who designed our logo negatively supersized our name from Modern Industrial Structures Inc. to MISI (Missy) and that reduced the mouthful of words we hung on our enterprise.

That first trailer - The Maiden Saskatchewan - took 31/2 months to build and a month and a half to sell. After pouring $250,000 into a $125,000 unit, we were desperate to find a company who would take a chance on an unproven manufacturer who didn't have a plant, had no reputation and zero connections in the oil industry. It was a tough sell...

Eventually, after contacting hundreds of companies, we found Lyle Kallis - the owner of Apex Oilfield Services from Red Deer, Alberta, - and after a grueling interrogation at his head office and a thorough inspection by Lyle's well - site trailer manager, he agreed to purchase our unit. That one gesture of faith was enough to allow us to continue in business - we will be forever indebted to Lyle for our start.

The Ball Starts Rolling

After selling our prototype unit to Apex, we were able to secure a 10,000 sq. ft. building on the north end of Saskatoon and we worked diligently to get it ready for production; installing overhead doors, removing a demising wall and mezzanines and getting some offices set up.

From that 10,000 sq ft plant we built a 49 man camp and 5 other relocatable platforms of our own design from lavatories to office units. Our camp went to Ft. McMurray and we struggled to find customers who were willing to purchase structures built by a new and as yet, unproven manufacturer of relocatable trailers.

Over the winter we built units for several Alberta construction companies and supplied offices for Bulk Explosives at Suncor, Ft. McMurray and Shaw Pipe in Regina, Saskatchewan. We still found it very tough and at times we had to build trailers on spec as we had no solid customers to order them.

Fortunately for us, one of our partners had developed a relationship with the local manager of a multi-national leasing company and the fellow was happy to point us in the right direction so we could begin the application process to become an approved vendor for that company. The process was much more involved than we had imagined and it ultimately took several months for us to be approved. Now we could see light at the end of the tunnel!

The Future's so Bright We have to wear Shades

Competitors - please ignor this part... ;-)

Holy Moly do we love working with a large customer with international reach.

We ramped up to meet their demand and started hiring like there was no tomorrow. By early May we had 50 people on staff in our small facility and were operating the plant in two shifts seven days a week in order to keep people from walking over each other.

Life got a lot larger at the beginning of May when we were able to secure a 67,000 sq ft warehouse in Saskatoon which was zoned for manufacturing. By June 13, 2007 we were producing units at our new location and had hired a few more people. We expect to produce 20 units from that plant in July and will increase production every month until we are producing two units per day.

But it's still a long way from easy...

To the Stars and Beyond!

Our next act will see us entering the camp market where we plan to produce remote housing for some of the large projects which are planned for Saskatchewan and beyond. We have a representative scouring western Canada for any job requiring relocatable accommodations and he has found some doozies.

In order to service the high demand for relocatable structures, we have partnered with some business men from Brandon, Manitoba where we assisted them in setting up another 28,000 sq ft plant bearing the MISI name. Production began in June at the Brandon plant and their first structures were shipped in early July 2007. This new addition to our manufacturing family gives us more than 105,000 sq ft of production space.

Our intention is to utilize our 59th St. plant  as a special projects location  where we will manufacture camp sleepers, camp wash cars, camp kitchens, recreation rooms and arctic corridors. With these facilities operating at 75% of capacity, we will be able to produce enough structures to service a 1000 man camp.

Partners in Progress

We are developing liaisons with several related companies in the camp industry and have agreed to work with a water management company which has a great track record for water filtration and recycling. Our relationship with these folks will allow us to re-engineer our structures to accommodate water and heat conservation systems which will provide savings on operating costs for the camp owner as well as offering proof that our camps are meeting or exceeding Green expectations.