As one of the original founding partners of 3D, people often ask me how it all started. Like many things in life, it was a collection of circumstances that all came together at the right time.
Back in 1991, Todd Scott, Tony Evers and I all worked at Interroll Canada. Todd was Sales Manager for Dynamic Storage Products (Pushback, Pallet Flow, Carton Flow), Tony was VP of production and I wore the design/sales hat. At the time Interroll Canada was a franchise. The owner sold the franchise back to Interroll Corporate in Switzerland, Corporate sent in a new president, the recession of 1991-2 hit, and Todd and Tony found themselves unemployed.
Todd and I had always felt the market for pushback racking was going to continue to grow, and saw a niche for a low profile structural system. We decided to start a new company focused strictly on high-density storage components and incorporated 3D in March of 1992. As a side note, 3D was supposed to represent Dynamic, High Density, Designs, but we also joked that it stood for 3 Dummies starting a business during a recession.
We spent the first 4-6 months working on a design – Todd created concepts using graph paper and coloured pencils (Manual CAD), I would fine tune them in AutoCAD, and Tony would fabricate the prototypes using the basic tools and a stick welder in our brand new 3000 square foot facility. Needless to say, there was a lot of grinding and re-welding. After many trials and tests, we had invented the first low profile structural steel cart pushback rack system and applied for and received US and Canadian Patents.
Along the way our customers challenged us to provide new products and solutions. 5 and 6 deep pushback was added to our product line. We branched into pallet flow racking, offering skate wheels, polycarbonate wheels, and rollers. GM was looking for a heavy duty carton flow and so we developed our full wheel bed product that is second to none in the industry.
Our facilities and equipment have grown over the years as well. Today we fabricate our products in a 50,000 square foot purpose-built plant and have added automated saws, a 400’ long powder coat paint line and robotic welding cells.
Tony moved on in 2002 and Todd has since passed away, but with my partners Mike Scott (Todd’s son) and Cameron Wynn (who started with us as an assembler in the back of the shop) we continue to strive to grow our business, serve our customers with quality dynamic storage products and have a little fun along the way.
If you have any questions or comments regarding 3D Storage Systems, please feel free to contact us today.