Scorpion Performance auto parts maker aims to sting competitionBY JIM WYSS  MARSHA HALPER/MIAMI HERALD STAFF Scorpion Performance owner Robert Stopanio shows off the automated robotics at his Fort Lauderdale auto parts factory. Scorpion Performance • Address: 3000 SW Fourth Ave., Fort Lauderdale. • Founded: 1999. • Employees: 38. • Claim to fame: Makers of the high-performance rocker arms that are popular among race enthusiasts. • What's next: Scorpion hopes to double its factory size and launch an IPO in early 2008. • Website:www.scorpionperformance.com Showing visitors around his 30,000 square-foot auto parts factory -- abuzz with workers, screeching saws and revving engines -- Robert Stopanio pauses at a room devoid of everything but the low hum of five hulking machines. The five CNC Swissturn automatic lathes -- originally designed to make medical equipment -- run 24 hours a day, seven days a week churning out aluminum parts. Best of all, says Stopanio, there's not a worker in sight. ''They don't take coffee breaks and don't stop to take a leak,'' he says admiringly. ``Our competitors work eight hours a day and we work 24. While they are home sleeping, we're dropping parts in the bucket.'' As U.S. manufacturers shutter factories and follow low-wage workers overseas, Fort Lauderdale's Scorpion Performance has been embracing robotics to compete with Asian prices. The company's signature products are high-performance rocker arms -- devices that sit atop combustion engines, popping back and forth, opening and closing valves. When speed enthusiasts want more punch out of their engine, they often start by swapping out rocker arms. Stopanio won't talk revenue for fear of tipping his hand to competitors, but the company sold almost 400,000 rocker arms last year and has sales in the millions. The products, which retail upward of $200 a set, are sold through about 100 distributors. If you've never heard of Scorpion, there's a reason: About half of sales are done under third-party labels (one of Scorpion's largest buyers didn't want its name in the paper, since it markets the products under its own brand) and the company doesn't spend a dime on advertising. With a full beard and ponytail, Stopanio, 44, has a voice factory-made for talking over roaring engines. He looks the part of a shop hand, but his is no ordinary shop. It's a place where robotic engineers and programmers share the floor with wrench-wielding mechanics. Stopping in front of a wire cage, Stopanio shows off one of the company's many innovations. There, a yellow robotic hand plucks a rocker arm out of one machine, spins 180 degrees and dives into a second machine where it puts down the rocker arm and picks up another. After running the piece over a floor-mounted polisher to remove burrs it lurches forward, dropping the finished rocker arm on a conveyer belt. Normally, the process would take eight steps, four pieces of equipment and five operators. The robot does it in three minutes -- and Scorpion recently developed the technology to do it in one minute. Stopanio claims it's an industry record (a claim his biggest U.S.-rival would not comment on) and the key to competing with massive low-wage factories. ''Equipment is available all over the world and aluminum is a commodity all over the world,'' he said. ``What they have over the U.S. is inexpensive labor, and what we have to battle that is automation.'' LOSSES IN FLORIDA It's a battle many factories have been losing. In the last decade, Florida has lost more than 81,000 factory jobs, and the vast majority of the 16,522 factories left in the state are smaller, tech-savvy operations, said June Wolfe, the president of the South Florida Manufacturing Association. ''With good automation you can be really cost-effective without going abroad,'' she said. 'But if you are going to throw your hands up and say `I am going to do it the old way,' your business is going to go away.'' Stopanio got his taste for motors and speed in his teens working at the Miami-Hollywood Speedway and moonlighting as a mechanic, souping up boat engines for racing aficionados. He soon realized that many of his customers also had a professional interest in his work: They were running drugs. GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY Recognizing the opportunity, Stopanio approached U.S. Customs, and at the age of 26 won the contract to build high-performance motors for their chase boats. It was at that company, called Blue Thunder Engines, that Stopanio discovered that there were a limited number of sources for rocker arms. In 1999 he launched Scorpion and began the race to catch up with the largest manufacturers. In racing, ''if you follow the leaders you will always be behind them,'' he said. ``You have to do research and development.'' That research led him down the path of automation. Stopanio has no advanced degrees but claims he was ''blessed with the common sense God gave me'' and is an ``expert at gathering experts.'' He also claims his racing background -- where success is measured in split seconds and is often the result of fine tinkering -- has made him a stickler for details. When Stopanio was unhappy with the quality of anodizing available on the market, Scorpion built its own complex to give the parts the sheen and color required. The results were good enough to catch the eyes of the medical industry, and now Scorpion has a thriving side business anodizing scalpel handles, optical rings and other medical tools. TRADITIONAL MIND-SET Despite being a high-tech manufacturer, Stopanio says much of his success comes from being old-fashioned. The factory is full of relatives and high-school friends, which has resulted in loyal staff and low turnover despite rivals' attempts to poach employees. Stopanio's partner in the venture is his wife Teresa, who has been working with him since they were in their teens. The company's finances are old-fashioned, too. Scorpion owns its building and all of its equipment (some $10 million worth) outright. But the company is suffering growing pains. Scorpion needs an additional 50,000 square feet just to install the new robots it has already purchased and keep up with orders, he said. While the company would consider moving out of state for cheaper real estate, it won't give in to the temptation of manufacturing overseas, said Stopanio. ''I won't cave to [Asia] . . . I'm going to figure out how to beat them,'' he said. ``I see this company as being one of the pioneers for bringing manufacturing back to the U.S.'' |
