Take a look inside C-Aire Compressors and see how we implement the highest level of quality assurance by utilizing customer feedback, teamwork, problem-solving, and by doing all of our assembly and testing in the United States. At C-Aire, our goal is to make high-quality, long-lasting air compressors, while leading the industry in innovation.
“Quality is more than just making sure that everything’s built properly. Part of quality is if there’s a problem, you need to figure out what went wrong and how do we improve it. Maybe we need to switch out a different part, maybe we need to change a component, maybe we need to change the materials. Carin and I care a lot about customer satisfaction. We love solving problems. I really enjoy the challenge of having a problem and figuring out a way to solve it. I’m Jason Hedeen. My wife, Carin, and I own C-Aire Compressors. C-Aire’s been around since 1979 and my wife and I bought it 10 years ago. We make compressors for a lot of different markets. We make them for fire protection, automotive, industrial, dairy, farming, and printing. They’re used everywhere. One thing about us is we’re not afraid to make changes. The other nice thing about owning a company, husband and wife, (by the way, I have the best wife, she’s an amazing wife and amazing business partner) but one thing is that we are not afraid to make decisions and make changes quickly. So, if there’s something that we need to do that’s going to improve quality or improve the customer experience, we have no problem just jumping right into it. Our goal, we want to make sure our compressors last a long time. We don’t look at how can we cheapen our compressor. We look at what do we need to do to make it last longer. Usually, the cost differential isn’t that much, and people will be more than happy to pay a little bit extra to get something that is going to last longer. It’s really important to look at stuff that doesn’t work and figure out how to make it better so it works all the time. Maybe it is the material that we use. There’s a material that we use in some of our valves. We figured out, hey let’s switch to Swedish stainless steel, and this will last longer. It can handle the temperatures better. If you want to have good quality, you need to do testing. And if you’re going to do testing, that means you need to do the assembly, at least, in the U.S. So, we do all of our assembly here, we do all of our testing here. Every compressor is run, tested, we look at the volts, we look at the amps, we look at the temperature, and we make sure that it doesn’t leak. Just making sure that you can do all that testing here is so critical if you want to have good quality. Customers just want compressors that work. They want it to be quiet, they want it to put out a certain amount of air, but at the same time, the most important thing is they need it to work. Compressed air in manufacturing or in any industry is really about that. It’s the same thing as electricity, if you don’t have it, you’re pretty much dead in the water. Nothing can get done. The biggest thing is you just need a really good team of people around you. Because if you have good people, if everyone on the team is rowing the boat in the right direction, everyone’s working towards the same goal, which is making sure the customer is taken care of, it’s going to really go far.” – Jason Hedeen, CEO of C-Aire Compressors