Apex Industrial Automation Acquires Quality Reducer Service
Apex Industrial Automation today announced the acquisition of Quality Reducer Service (QRS), a gearbox repair specialist serving manufacturers, mills, power plants, refineries, and processing facilities across the Midwest. Apex acquired QRS from Circle Gear and Machine Company. The acquisition deepens Apex’s industrial repair capabilities and extends its single-source model into one of the most specialized corners of the power transmission market.
For Apex, this continues a pattern of expanding our service suite. Since Ryan Watts purchased Apex in 2006, the company has grown through deliberate acquisition, adding motor repair, EASA-accredited service, industrial distribution, and custom control panel fabrication. Each step is driven by what customers actually need. QRS fits that logic precisely.
Why Quality Reducer Service?
Founded in 1989, Quality Reducer Service built its reputation on a narrow, deliberate focus: fast, dependable gearbox repair and rebuilding, and nothing else. While general machine shops treat gearbox work as one job among many, QRS handles every job on a priority basis.
QRS services all major gearbox brands and types, including Falk, Rexnord, Dodge, Sumitomo, SEW, Chemineer, Philadelphia, and Nord, across configurations from worm and hypoid reducers to planetary and right-angle drives. Every unit undergoes a rigorous overhaul and repair process that includes disassembly, inspection against original print dimensions, run testing, and reassembly to like-new operation, and is backed by a one-year warranty on fully rebuilt units.
What This Means for Customers
For QRS customers, the core commitment holds: the same priority-basis gearbox repair, performed by the same specialists, now operating from Apex’s Romeoville facility. What changes is reach. QRS repair work now connects to Apex’s broader MRO platform, including electric motor distribution and repair, UL-certified panel fabrication, and a single-source supply network spanning northern Illinois, Chicagoland, and neighboring states.
For Apex customers, the acquisition fills another service niche. When a gearbox fails, downtime is measured in lost production. Bringing dedicated gearbox specialists into the Apex family means more of that repair work, and the urgency it demands, stays within a single, accountable partner.
Looking Ahead
“This acquisition reflects what Apex has always been about: meeting our customers’ needs by building genuine capability,” said Ryan Watts, President of Apex Industrial Automation. “QRS has spent more than three decades earning the trust of operators who can’t afford downtime. We intend to honor that, and to build on it.”
Quality Reducer Service will operate from Apex’s Romeoville, Illinois, facility. Existing QRS customers can reach the team at info@qualityreducer.com or sales@apexindustrialautomation.com.
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