Built to Last

An insistent customer’s request gave rise to Modus Inc. five years ago. Now this accidental company’s products are known as the Cadillac of portable buildings

Jan 1, 2009  

by Malwina Gudowska

While they typically cost more up front than competing portables, the company argues (and its customers evidently agree) that it saves money in the long run. The life span of a Modus modular unit is approximately 50 years, says Simonelli, with the added guarantee that it can be moved numerous times depending on the client’s needs. For example, if a school board requires more modular units in one area and less in another, or if a telecommunications company such as Bell Mobility (one of Modus’s clients) comes out with a big contract requiring a number of units, the modules are easily transferable. “Traditionally, portables can be rundown and decrepit and they age far quicker than our units. When you move them, they break down,” says Simonelli. “Our relocatables are very strong and high quality and can be moved many times.”

Diversification has been integral to the company’s growth. In addition to the modulars for the telecommunication and education industries, in 2008, the company expanded into mining, oil and gas with a $54 million contract with Suncor Energy, providing 1,500 units to accommodate workers in Fort McMurray.

In the spring of last year, Modus also acquired Clear Choice Windows, a window manufacturer in Saskatchewan. In addition to producing the windows in-house, the company produces a line of steel components, such as cladding, C and Z channels and Z-purlins as well as preengineered steel buildings. “Both [windows and steel components] have their own markets as well outside of what they provide internally, so we can grow the company as a whole,” says Dotto.

“We try to reach markets that are complementary to the next market so that we have a progressive, stable growth curve,” adds Simonelli.

The common thread in all of the products is that they deal with the quality of life of the occupant, says Dotto. “If you look at classrooms, oil and gas and even telecommunications, because of the high quality of the structure in that living space, it’s a much more comfortable area,” he says.

Although Modus has diversified into a handful of markets, the contract to build classrooms was the catalyst, says Simonelli. In the spring of 2006, the company began working with Olds College, producing five units for the school’s transitional Calgary Campus in Stampede Park. “[We] learned through their government contacts in regards to work they were doing there,” says
Dan Fullerton, director of innovation for Olds College. “Their experience allowed us to assess the system and construction and it was natural for us to select [them].” (All of the contracts with Alberta Infrastructure for classrooms, including Olds College, are awarded through a competition between varying companies.) In the case of the modulars for the transition campus, rather than being attached to a school, the five units function independently. The college worked with Modus to develop the customized classroom units that include a computer lab, an office, washrooms and classrooms for the land administration and fashion retailing programs.

“The primary differentiating feature is the quality of construction and thinking that has gone into the design,” says Fullerton. “You can parachute [the units] anywhere and they would deal with the elements.” Although it wasn’t the overarching factor – security, insulation and a high level of construction were the main ones – as to why the college chose Modus, the mobility of the units is a significant bonus since the college will eventually be moving them out of Stampede Park to the CrossIron Mills site under construction just north of the city.

Even in an economic downturn, Modus doesn’t plan on slowing down anytime soon. “We still have a belief that certain clients that we have are still going to require the products that we offer, and it’s just a matter of having a controlled growth atmosphere,” says Simonelli. In addition to planning for a replacement program for classrooms, a potential expansion into the United States as well as to the North, the company is also planning on targeting new markets in the next three to six months. Although the partners are tight-lipped about what markets, the research and development phase has already begun. “The beauty of the product is that it has so many wide, varying uses,” says Dotto. No matter where the Modus modulars pop up next or what they’re used for, just don’t call them trailers.

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