EMCO Industries opened a new, 30,000-square-foot automated manufacturing facility in Claremore, Okla., dedicated exclusively to the heavy-duty trailer market.
It also appointed Wayne Sornberger director of business development.
"Bringing this plant online and appointing Wayne to lead our HD sales efforts are two key components of our strategy," says Marcus Hester, president of EMCO. "We built capacity specifically for heavy-duty trailer springs and we brought in someone who has spent his career in that segment and knows what those buyers need. The plant gives us the room to grow. Wayne gives us the relationships to fill it."
A dozen heavy-duty spring configurations are being produced on the line, including the company's high-performance mono-leaf spring.
"Customer's stay with people who will solve their problems and that starts with getting product on the dock when you say you will," Sornberger says. "What EMCO gives me to sell is a spring built in Oklahoma from American steel, an eight-week lead time instead of 16 or 20, and a supply line that isn't exposed to import tariffs. Those are the three things buyers ask me about first."
The plant more than doubles EMCO's production capacity. It uses 12 robots working in tandem on the line and is also expected to support about 20 new jobs in the area.
"Quality and price are table stakes in this business. If you can't deliver, none of it matters," Hester says. "That is what has earned us the business we have won over the last several years and it is what the new facility protects as volume grows. We are not asking customers to take that on faith. Our record is on their receiving docks."
