Yesterday, Weds. 27th, Ma and I piled in the van with a box full of packing material and set off on a buying trip for shop stock. Our plan was to hit up Iowa and some of the unique small towns there. After stopping in one of Minnesota’s own small towns’ bakery we were off on what proved to be a super day. As with all ventures of this nature we had a designated starting point and drove directly to that. It just happened to be Do-It’s home of Denver, Iowa. I made the Do-It company our first stop. Yes, they got a heads up that I was on my way.
Jerry wanted to keep working when Carole and I got in the door, so Ryan got stuck giving us the grand tour and all I can say is WOW. When I got this wild travel bug I googled up the Do-It address and took a peek at the site map. There was a cluster of about 6 or 8 large buildings on a hug lot and I assumed that Do-It would be found in one. No problem finding that lot and signs could lead the way, right? Boy I got a shocker.
Now I’ve been a Do-It customer for years. Basically every mold I have owned to cast jigs has come from Do-It’s line up except some random molds picked up at garage sales. My very first commercially made mold was a Do-It back a long, long time ago and while I knew they dealt in some paints, I had no idea of the size and scope of the Do-It enterprise. Those several buildings are ALL Do-It property and each one is literally full.
We started out tour in the front office area and were then taken out to where a mold starts, the casting building. Since Do-It casts aluminum, I was looking for a large chimney for a smelter, only to find an electric furnace whipping up 1600 degrees to melt aluminum ingots. Ryan explained that the molds for casting the molds were made of sand. Then he showed how the molds were made. We watched as two people built the sand molds and then as a worker ladled the aluminum into the molds. From there we went to yet another building where machining hinges and mating surfaces took place. Then we went into yet another area where packing the finished products was done. Then we found the shipping department where your orders go to from the front office and are filled. A short time later we went into another machining room where a bunch of different tasks took place….and this was the room that holds all of the new portion of Do-It’s latest venture…..Caney Creek. And from our visit in this area, I will attempt to answer some of the questions we have seen on the site of late.
When Caney came into the Do-It family, all new rules were brought into play. Molds that had at one time been made to order and never on hand as stock are now being made en-masse and being stocked. This is a Do-it custom to assure prompt service. This requires a stock number for each mold. Stock numbers that were never a Do-It number now are assigned to each color of colorant, each color of glitter….the list goes on to include every single item sold and used in the Caney line to make plastic baits. To add to all of this, anything that gets re-packaged [glitters, colorants, pearls] compounds the number of numbers and the space needed for a systematic and orderly transition. Honestly I think things have moved very well, but still some small glitches have popped up. They have been handled well I think. The whole of the Do-It company is working with the Caney product line so they can become familiar with stock numbers and product names. It’s all new to them. The bottom line is that Do-It’s integration of the Caney products is going to take some time, but at the same time our friends at Do-It are looking at new products to bring in to expand our abilities with the plastic.
After the walk-through, Carole and I had a chance to sit and chat with Jerry and Ryan. We asked questions, they asked questions. Not very often will a person at the consumer level find a company asking questions of “how can we do this better for you?”. And right there in front of me at the table where we chatted was a series of trays, loaded with maybe 100 different shots of a couple colors of new hi lite/pearls that are soon to come our way. Each and every bait was different, having varying amounts of the pear/hilite added to each one. Beyond this, I was told of the on-going color search for colorants, which steps way beyond the realm of plastic injection. This is complex stuff, time consuming and complicated, but these guys are on it. There is absolutely no moss growing at the Do-It company.
When Carole and I left to do her shopping, she commented on being very impressed with the tour we had and the talk we had afterward. She understands my passion for tackle and said she thought that I picked one dandy place to visit. I couldn’t agree more with her. Do-It has always been founded on the premise of customer service being first and foremost. They’ve never let any growth interfere with that. I just can’t get over the scope of what Do-It represents and seeing first hand what they had BEFORE the Caney merger has me shaking my head thinking how can such a “small” business actually be as big as it is and still take on more. They are proving they are up to the task and I think they are doing a darned respectable job of it. I just want to thank Jerry and Ryan for a very entertaining morning for Carole and I and to say it was a true pleasure to meet both of you and all of the Do-It family. What an honor.
