Ideas Incorporated is ready, willing and able to fulfill your chemical requirements.  Founded in 1974 by Frank J. Ressa, Ideas is a family-owned and operated metalworking additive manufacturer.  With an office in Lombard, Illinois and a manufacturing facility just outside Chicago, Ideas prides itself on offering top quality additives to their customers worldwide. In addition, Ideas provides formulation assistance and custom processing services to many of its compound blenders.  A lot has changed in the last 35 years, but one thing has not and that is Ideas' committment to producing high quality products, tailor-made to meet the needs of their customers.

Briefly describe your business.
Ideas is a one-stop shop for manufacturers of metalworking lubricants, rust preventives and automotive products.  Half of our product line is of our own manufacturing, the balance are resale items.  We typically have two hundred products in inventory.

What is the size of the company?
Ideas has 14 employees and ships ten million pounds per year throughout N. America, Asia & S. America.

What is your ideal client?
Our ideal customer is one who buys three to five items per order and pays their bills.

What products and/or services does your business offer?
We offer our customers formulary assistance, fair prices and quick service.

How did you originally discover the idea for your business?
The idea for my business was to supply unique ideas for a broad spectrum of formulas.

What have been the keys to success in your eyes?
Success is a function of hard work and persistence.

What kind of relationships do you establish with your customers?
Our relationship with our customers is a combination of reliability, good products and longevity.

How do you maintain the relationships?
It's a function of the above 4 questions.

Have you noticed any trends in your industry?
Our business has trended downward since 2000 due to a loss of manufacturing base in the US.

What is your greatest achievement?
That I’m still here after 35 years, even after a fire in 2001 that destroyed our manufacturing plant and our entire inventory.

Describe your business in 5 words or less?
Respond to the customer's needs.