For seven years, the 240,000-square-foot building that once housed The Dayton Daily News printing plant was a vacant eyesore along I-75 between Dayton and Cincinnati. Modula moved in in 2020, and the 50-acre complex blossomed back to life.
Pronounced MOD-u-la, the Italy-based company is an international leader in large-scale, automated vertical lift storage units for factories and warehouses. When launching a second U.S. plant, the company’s choice of Franklin made sense on multiple levels.
First, Ohio is centrally located and offers excellent logistical infrastructure to much of the continental U.S. Second, employment resources like Jobs Ohio and REDI Cincinnati are famously friendly to large employers seeking to set up shop. “Ohio is really easy to work with,” says David Lind, director of sales. As an added perk, “Ohio has a really long tradition in the metal fabrication industry,” he says, so using the vacated space as a manufacturing hub felt like an honorable nod to the state’s roots.
Globally, Modula boasts 1,500 employees, produces $350 million in revenue, and has subsidiary offices in 12 countries, including Colombia, Germany, Australia, and Singapore. The Franklin site, one of four manufacturing hubs, employs about 150 positions from fabrication to finance and everything in between.
The facility regularly hosts public workshops, tours, and internship programs. A designated culture committee seeks partnerships with local charities and fundraising events. “Modula is big about opening its door to the community,” says Lind, adding that as a champion of modern, cutting-edge manufacturing technology, the company is also a morale-boosting symbol that “Ohio’s got a foot in the future.”
Though Modula was founded 35 years ago in Italy, the company’s innovative technology was brand-new to the U.S. when it opened a plant in Maine in 2015. Ideal for businesses that store large quantities of multiple products or parts, the company’s automated, vertical storage systems put overhead “dead space” to use, improving warehouse capacities by 90 percent and cutting down product-retrieval inefficiencies by 99 percent. “The name of the game in logistics and supply chain is efficiency and optimization,” says Lind. “That’s what everybody’s trying to do. And Modula nails those two.”

While other automated vertical storage companies have entered the U.S. market since Modula’s arrival, the company continues to be a pacesetter. Its entire product line is proudly American made, and it’s the only company that can guarantee a 12-week delivery time. Dealers and distributing partners are “hand-picked” for quality, says Lind, and customer service functions are run entirely stateside.
Each unit is user-friendly and compatible with subsequent units. Because the ROI for a single Modula product is just nine to 15 months, repeat customers are the norm. Companies such as VEGA, Emerson, and Johnson & Johnson are among Modula’s happy customers in this region.
As Modula expands its American footprint, it continues to welcome customer feedback and adapt its services accordingly to meet evolving needs. “Where we can innovate, we do,” Lind says.