Interlake’s Vidir Machine playing in the big leagues
By John Coward
Friday December 31, 2004
Willie and Sid Dueck have worked to develop a thriving enterprise with international sweep.
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Vidir Machine began in 1976 as a machine shop offering repair services to the agricultural equipment market and from these humble beginnings, in a 3,500-sq.-ft. shop, it is now an international player in the motorized storage and display systems business, supplying carpet, vinyl, wire products and, most recently, bicycle merchandising systems.
Vidir Machine’s location in the Interlake, just north of Arborg, may seem to some an oddity. However it is well-positioned in the global marketplace. Although Vidir’s largest customer is the United States, its products are used around the world, in Europe, the Middle East, Australia and most recently Chile and Pakistan. Its labour force currently stands at 160 at its two plants in Manitoba.
Sid Dueck, co-president along with his brother Raymond and brother-in-law Peter Dueck, credits his father Willie’s invention, in 1986, of a motorized storage rack needed to store carpet and vinyl flooring at their old lumber business.
A vinyl salesman, calling on the lumber business, noticed the new mechanized rack and asked if Vidir could produce one for his company. Since production began on that first storage rack, thousands of motorized carpet carousels have been sold around the world.
Other Vidir Machine inventions followed in the years to come -- inventions that would hurdle the company into a leadership role in the massive material handling and storage industry.
Vidir Machine’s stable of products now include Tug-a-Rug, a motorized area rug display system, which enables customers to ‘browse’ through the heaviest of area rugs as easy as turning the pages of a book.
The product line has expanded from handling and storage of rolled products to mechanized tire carousels used in the retail tire industry.
Vidir’s research and development department is currently designing a motorized carousel display for the safe handling and merchandising of propane tanks.
The carousel concept for merchandising carpets was redesigned and adapted to create Vidir’s newest entry into the market, a Bicycle Merchandising System which allows the retailer to display bicycles vertically at the same time giving customers easy accessibility to all models on display.
Vidir Machine’s Morris plant produces the Bicycle Merchandising System for Walmart and other retailers.
“After installing the system in Walmart, not only did they save valuable retail floor space,” says Sid Dueck, “their sales of bicycles increased by 70 per cent because the customers can examine any bicycle in the store without needing store staff to retrieve bikes displayed high and out of reach.”
Although Vidir’s niche market is material handling systems, diversity is part of its marketing strategy for the future. One of Vidir’s most recent inventions is a gasifier which burns straw bales to produce gas used to fire hot water heating systems. The gasifier heating system is used to heat the entire Vidir Machine plant.
Sid Dueck is excited about the prospects for their latest invention. “Besides using a renewable resource as fuel, the operating costs are much lower than natural gas and the payback period is less than four to five years,” he said.
For three years in a row, Vidir Machine has been named one of Canada’s fastest growing companies.
With more than 600 truckloads of product leaving the Arborg plant every year Sid Dueck says, “ The biggest challenge we face at this time is working toward establishing a good system of roads in the area.”
The family-owned business has come a long way in the past 17 years and the potential for future growth is limitless. Seen as a model for development and innovation Vidir Machine is attracting other entrepreneurs who see the tremendous opportunities in the Interlake region.