2,500% Revenue Growth Lands CRG Automation at No. 172 on Inc. 5000 List of Fastest-Growing Private Companies
Company’s employment increased six-fold in just two years
SEPTEMBER 16, 2021 — LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY — Inc. magazine has ranked custom engineering and automation integration firm CRG Automation an impressive 172 on its annual list of America’s 5,000 fastest-growing private companies. CRG Automation achieved the ranking by recording 2,473% revenue growth over the past three years.
Among the accomplishments behind that increase was CRG Automation’s success with its first U.S. Department of Defense project, which began in 2019 and led the military to become a repeat customer. As those projects expanded, CRG Automation grew its team six-fold, from five employees to 30.
The Inc. 5000 list represents a unique look at the most successful companies within the American economy’s most dynamic segment — its independent small businesses. Intuit, Zappos, Under Armour, Microsoft, Patagonia and many other well-known names gained their first national exposure as honorees on the Inc. 5000.
Over the past 18 months, CRG Automation’s engineers teamed up with the Department of Defense to overhaul the destruction of an aging stockpile of the Army’s most dangerous chemical weapons. The last and most deadly of their kind, the military’s M55 rockets have warped over time and become prone to leaking their deadly chemical agents. Staring down an aggressive 2023 destruction deadline, the U.S. government took an unprecedented step in mid-2019, rethinking the entire process with the goal of creating a more efficient and safe destruction process. Seeking automation expertise to enhance the use of robots instead of people, the government turned to CRG Automation, best known for building packaging lines for the likes of Coca-Cola, Kellogg’s and Kraft.
While the company continues to offer cartoners, case packers and other packaging equipment, CRG Automation now focuses primarily on advanced offerings such as robotic integrations and custom design-build equipment. That shift has taken place as repeat customers approached with more and more complex problems, leading the company’s team of engineers — with specialties such as mechanical, process and electrical — to devise custom engineered solutions, often incorporating advanced robotics.
The company’s 40,000-square-foot headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky, features a controls and machine shop, plus the floor space required to build proofs of concept and set up and conduct performance testing for complete packaging and processing lines. Because CRG Automation understands each customer’s problem is unique, the company assigns an employee to oversee each project from beginning to end, so customers always have a single point of contact throughout design, fabrication, assembly, integration and testing.
Complete results of the Inc. 5000, including company profiles and an interactive database that can be sorted by industry, region and other criteria, can be found at Inc.com/Inc5000. The top 500 companies, including CRG Automation, are also being featured in the September issue of Inc.
“Building one of the fastest-growing companies in America in any year is a remarkable achievement. Building one in the crisis we’ve lived through is amazing,” said Scott Omelianuk, editor-in-chief of Inc. “This kind of accomplishment comes with hard work, smart pivots, great leadership and the help of a whole lot of people.”