Company Report: AMISA Group: Changing its focus
AMISA Group: Changing its focus With the US auto industry in crisis, CEO Alvaro Rodriguez explains how this Mexican firm specializing in relocation is seeking a worldwide market

For nearly three decades the majority of AMISA Group's business has come from US automakers like General Motors, Chrysler and Ford and tier1 and tier 2 suppliers who've relied on the relocation firm to transport their manufacturing equipment to Mexico. These days, with the American auto industry struggling, Amisa has been pushed to expand in exciting new directions.
"We saw the automotive industry slowing down, but aerospace is ramping up," CEO Alvaro Rodriguez says. "We've been attending conferences related to it and we see potential for lots of companies moving from USA, Canada and Europe into Mexico. We want to be the first ones to be there."
Until now about 80 percent of AMISA Group's business has come from the U.S. and Canada. Expanding in new geographic directions will mean building a stronger marketing presence worldwide.
Since 1980 the Monterrey, Mexico based firm has offered clients a full range of services, disassembling equipment, ensuring it's transported safely and legally across the Mexican border, and then carefully putting everything back together in working order. About 30 percent of Amisa's work is subcontracted to partners in the rigging industry who help with loading and transporting equipment.
AMISA Group and many of its partners are members of the SC&RA. AMISA works regularly with Del Prado Logistics, Inc, Freight Logistics SA de CV, Productos y Servicios Anze SA de CV, Multitraslados Internacionales AS de CV, ATLA Industrial Contractors Ltd, Don R. Fruchey, Inc, Matcom Industrial Installations Inc and PSC Crane and Rigging.
The company has set itself apart in the business by guaranteeing to customers that it will have their equipment in perfect working order no matter what. To ensure that every piece will be properly replaced, workers have to carefully make sketches and diagrams and carefully tag and mark every piece they disassemble.
"We assure it will be in the same condition so that they don't have to worry," he says. "The same people who disconnect the equipment put it back together. That's the key factor. If I trust someone else to reconnect it they might end up with parts all over the place."
About 10 years ago AMISA Group worked to install one of the largest pieces of auto manufacturing equipment in all of Latin America, a 12,500 ton capacity forging press used for making truck parts. According to Rodriguez, it weighed a whopping 1500 tons.
"We feel proud we've done most of the heavy installation in Mexico for the auto industry," Rodriguez says.

Accelerated efficiency
The wheels spin slowly in the relocation industry. It can take anywhere from 3-6 months or maybe even a year to relocate a project from start to finish. But the speed of administrative tasks in AMISA Group's office has revved up drastically in the past couple of years thanks to a new computer system that's helped to optimize processes, better organize clients' accounts and has saved employees valuable time and effort. There are 22 employees on staff and 50 in the field and having a high tech computer system has helped to reduce employee workload.
"Before this there was a lot of duplicate and triplicate work," says Rodriguez. "Now every step of the process is loaded and you go step by step. You make sure you're complying with the process which ensures quality."
"It's easy for many companies in this industry to stay where they are, to waste a little money here and there," he adds. "Many companies don't care about being the top one or having more modern practices; they just go to work. We don't want to do that."
Now that business is being done faster and more efficiently, Rodriguez says, the company has set its sights higher. They would like to become certified by the International Organization for Standardization so they can be recognized as a world-class company. In their effort to raise the bar on professionalism they've taken a new approach to employee incentives, establishing a bonus program that rewards people on a project-to-project basis.
"As a world class company we have to make people feel happy so we are implementing a program based on results or efficiency," Rodriguez says.

Hands-on approach to business
Rodriguez and his friend Raul Galvan had been successful in collaborations with their own separate companies when they decided to merge in 2004 and offer customers better performance from a more solid entity. AMISA Group was formed with Rodriguez as CEO and Galvan as President of the Board.
Galvan had owned his own business since 1980 while Rodriguez, 44, started his in 1987. He holds a degree in mechanical engineering and a Masters degree in mechanical design.
"We decided we should merge the companies and take advantage of offering a wider scope of services," he says, adding, "In the last five years we've been working at advertising and branding ourselves as one single company."
Though his time now is spent traveling and attending to accounting and administrative tasks, at heart Rodriguez is a skilled mechanic who enjoys participating in projects which involve mechanical design. He grew up in a small town 80 miles south of Monterrey where he worked in his father's automotive shop from the time he was eight years old. "My vacation time was spent in the shop," he says.
For the past few years Rodriguez has been enjoying the process of building his business skills by taking classes and workshops. His favorite part of being CEO, he says, is "the challenge of making a business successful. You have to learn a lot so you can transmit it to the organization."
Rodriguez is especially excited about many new changes that will take place in coming months. On June 1 the company unveiled a new image complete with a freshly designed logo and website. Now they will begin reaching out to firms in the aerospace industry, attending conferences and advertising in business magazines in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
"Before we were limiting our success to the automotive industry," Rodriguez says. "Now we are broadening our scope. We want to be the top Mexican company."

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