Since arriving in Spokane just six years ago, Zak Designs Inc. has quadrupled its sales, more than tripled the size of both its work force and its West Plains facility, and made a push into foreign markets.


Now the distributor of cartoon character-emblazoned dinnerware:


Plans to open an office and warehouse in Tamworth, England, that is expected to employ as many as 15 people by the end of next year. Within the next two years, the company also plans to open a facility in Southern Europe, and it eventually plans to eye South America as another potential sales office site.


Expects 1998 sales of $55 million, up from $45 million last year, and hopes to reach annual sales of $110 million within the next four years. During its first year of business here, the company did $11 million in business.


Plans within the next month to buy the name and product line of a Los Angeles-based housewares company. The acquisition would be Zak Designs third in 18 months.


Achieving such growth, says Irv Zakheim, the companys president and CEO, has required staying focused on growth and remaining profitable. Too many companies begin to focus on growth and take their eyes off of profits, he says.


The Spokane-based company has been quietly aggressive. Its work force has grown to 180, from just 48 at the end of its first year in Spokane. It also has expanded its now 200,000-square-foot headquarters and warehouse at 1604 S. Garfield Road at least once a year for the past five years, most recently adding 70,000 square feet of floor space in two projects that together cost $2.5 million.


Zakheim says he hopes that the company, which came to Spokane with just three employees, now has enough space to accommodate its growth for awhile.


Inside the big facility, the companys seven graphic artists develop their own designer patterns and create cartoon-character designs based on characters Zak Designs licenses from companies such as Disney Co. and Warner Bros. The cartoon-character designsfeaturing characters ranging from Nickelodeons Rugrats to Disneys Winnie the Poohend up being printed on the childrens dinnerware that Zak Designs distributes. The designer patterns are printed on the adult dinnerware. The artists also design the packaging for the products.


The artwork is sent to Zak Designs sister company in Taiwan, Sara Rose International, which arranges contracts with more than 25 factories in the Orient to make the place mats, melamine resin plates, acrylic cups, and stainless-steel travel coffee mugs for Zak Designs. Sara Rose International, which is owned by Zakheim, another Zak Designs executive, her husband, and two Taiwanese investors, then passes the designs on to the factory, that makes the products.


After the products have been manufactured, they are shipped to Zak Designs facility here, where workers assemble the various products into boxed sets and place the unsealed packages on a 400-foot-long conveyor system that winds through the packaging room in the companys cavernous warehouse. The conveyor system leads to automated equipment that tapes the packages shut.


The packages are sent to retailers across the U.S., including such big chains as Target, Wal-Mart, and Toys R Us, as well as some national grocers, Zakheim says. Some of the products are packaged by an 18-month-old division of Zak Designs, called Selandia Designs, which distributes the goods to department stores such as Bloomingdales, Macys, and Nordstrom, as well as to gift stores, party-supply stores, and discount centers, he says.


Zakheim says the most recent warehouse expansion, which began a year ago and was completed last February, has made the company more efficient. He says Zak Designs now can ship three times as much volume as before, and at the same time reduce its work shifts from two to one. The company also has been able to cut back on the number of temporary workers it uses, he says.


Product line must grow


To reach $110 million in sales by 2002, the company must continue to expand its product line and boost its international sales, Zakheim says.


In the past few years, Zak Designs has concentrated on expanding its offerings. It has begun distributing adult dinnerware, in addition to childrens dinnerware, and recently began distributing drink ware for the coffee market.


The company has expanded its product line by creating new products and by acquiring other companies that produce related items.


In April 1997, the company bought Selandia Designs, a Santa Clarita, Calif.-based distributor of upscale childrens and adult dinnerware, and made it a division of Zak Designs. Selandias operations were moved to Spokane from Santa Clarita.


About two months ago, Zak Designs also bought the Laserware product line from New York-based Funatics. Laserware is a new type of drink ware that has two dimensional characters protruding from it, Zakheim says.


Now, Zak Designs is working to buy the name and products of a Los Angeles company, which Zakheim declines to name.


We want to grow in areas that are related to dinnerware and drink ware, Zakheim says. We arent going to just jump into something, hoping that it works. We want to look at our best opportunities and make sure it will work.


Zakheim says that Zak Designs also is looking to expand the markets its in by focusing on international sales. The company began selling its products abroad about three years agoit has had two people working in England for the past three yearsand it now sells products throughout Europe, Asia, and South America.


The companys international sales currently make up about 15 percent of its total sales each year. He says that hed like to see international sales account for about 40 percent of the companys total business within the next three or four years.


Down the road, I think the international sales and the sales in the U.S. could be doing equal amounts of business, Zakheim says.