Automotive: The Engine of Southern Ohio
First in the U.S. in parts production, stampings and vehicle lighting, Ohio is a favored location for the automotive industry. The state swaps places with Michigan from year to year in truck production.
Southern Ohio contributes to the picture with a number of important plants, including Ford's transmission plant in Clermont County, next to Cincinnati, and Kenworth's Ross County truck plant. All across the band of southern Ohio counties, just-in-time deliveries zip along the highways.
Kenworth, which came to Chillicothe 22 years ago, established southern Ohio as a prime location for the transportation products industry. One of the latest entries is Landmark Industries, which moved its manufacturing operations from Morris, Ill., in 1995.
Occupying a spec building in Chillicothe's Great Seal Industrial Park, Landmark makes interior trim parts for the Kenworth Class A cab (headliners, door pads and curtains) and sleeper parts. It also ships to the Kenworth's West Coast and Mexico plants and supplies replacement parts to Paccar dealers.
Landmark also supplies fire truck interiors to a company in Springfield, Ohio, and does boat seating for SeaRay.
The company came to Chillicothe because of proximity to Kenworth and to tap Ross County's large amount of available labor.
"The work is mainly hand work on vinyl and cloth," explains K.C. Taylor, plant manager. "Other than sewing machines, there are not a lot of machines for doing upholstery work. It's a lot of gluing, wrapping and stapling. Manual dexterity is important, and there were some experienced sewing people in the area. But the attitude of the workers was the main advantage." The plant employs 160, all on one shift.
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Most just-in-time suppliers don't have the advantages of Landmark -- it's just across the street from the Kenworth plant. "We run our work cells in the same order that Kenworth runs theirs," says Taylor. "When we get a chassis completed we deliver it to their line at the right time. If there's a damaged part, we're in radio communication with Kenworth so that we can run over a replacement part before the truck goes to the next area. It's nice being this close."
The company ships to Kenworth's west coast facility in bulk. It has a staging facility there where it kits the materials, then delivers it in sequence to the Kenworth plant, just as it does in Chillicothe. "Chillicothe is located so well to supply the East Coast and Canada," says Taylor. "You're just hours away from major markets. With the Paccar parts we send dealer direct, this is important." |
At start-up, Pickaway Ross Vocational School screened prospective employees and conducted training sessions in the plant in the evenings for the first work force. This is labor intensive operation, and the company looks for continuous process improvements so that it can hold the line on costs.
"There is a sense of urgency in every area," says Taylor. "We have goals and measures, and the employees know what's supposed to be produced each day. And everyone knows once we reach a goal, it's no longer the goal. We're always looking for continuous improvement."
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Taylor explains that the plant's layout facilitates process improvements. "When our people have ideas for better ways of doing things we'll move equipment and work teams around. Our people buy into that --all you have to do is ask," he says. Another Southern Ohio outfitter is TS Trim in Athens. The plant, which located in southeast Ohio in the late 1980s, provides upholstery to Honda. The plant produces trim covers for 1,400 Honda Civic, Accord and Acura CL models day. The covers go to a sister company, TS Tech in Reynoldsburg, which assembles the seats and ships them on to Honda in Marysville. The plant, the largest industrial employer in Athens County, also trims luxury electronic massage chairs for Panasonic. |
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Keith Mills, senior plant manager, reports the Japanese-owned firm considered numerous sites before settling in Athens. "The company looked at the incentive package offered by the city of Athens, which was very good, and the work force availability in this part of the state," says Mills. "We continue to have a good labor supply and the work ethic is great. The icing on the cake was that the company's executive vice president liked the physical appearance of the county -- it reminded him of his home in Japan."
The current facility of 110,000 sq. ft. is undergoing a 55,000-sq. ft., $6.3 million expansion to bring in new technology.
"Because of how the Athens plant has proved itself over the last nine years and because our customer (Honda) thinks highly of us, they have given us the green light to expand," says Mills. "It's a nice blend with what we have -- our base line is very labor-intensive and our new product line is very capital-oriented, state-of-the-art and automated."
The new product line coming to Athens with the expansion will be shipped directly to Honda, meaning the plant now steps up from a Tier 2 plant to a Tier 1.
The cut-and-sew facility employs 400 associates. Turnover rate among employees is very low. Average seniority in the nine-year-old plant is seven years.
How did the Appalachian worker deal with the Japanese management style? The unisex uniforms, the single labor rate for similar production jobs at any location, the open office environment? "It's worked out very well," says Mills. "There is a very strong emphasis on teamwork, and this facility is one of the highest rated plants in teamwork in our organization. The Appalachian people are very outspoken and very firm in their beliefs. But once you get them all pointed in the same direction, they'll do anything you ask. That's what's really been amazing to me."
The just-in-time route from Athens to Marysville is U.S. 33. "Honda is on the north end in Marysville and Athens on the east end, so there's a natural connection," says Mills. Fabrics come up from the Carolinas via I-77 which is close by. Content -- vinyl, cloth and leather -- is of 100 percent U.S. origin.
It was new business opportunity that brought Borg Warner, a $1.5 billion multinational headquartered in Chicago, to Gallia County. From Federal Mogul, the company bought a plant for making automatic transmission parts from powdered metal, as well as the local worker expertise in the unique process.
The parts -- races for one-way clutches -- are formed of powdered metal and then forged, which makes them as hard as steel. The forging die allows intricate shaping that would be difficult and more costly to machine.
With three shifts and 260 employees currently, the company is expanding its work force by 140 and its plant by 50,000 sq. ft. to handle races formerly manufactured in Michigan. The Gallia County plant will pick up seven new part numbers, which will boost sales to double the current level.
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Plant manager Roger Archibald cites three reasons for the expansion: "With 22 acres, we have room to add on business. Plus we received good cooperation from the state and local governments to help with incentives and training grants. Finally, we can find the labor we need -- people with machining skills, press experience and mechanical and electrical maintenance skills. An additional sweetener was an electricity rate reduction with the expansion." |
The training grants were critical to Borg Warner. Says Archibald: "The automotive industry requires continuous quality improvements, and we have to constantly upgrade our workers to meet expectations."
Helping in the hiring and training process is Buckeye Hills. Working through the "Work Keys" program, the institution is putting together a step-by-step job task analysis. The result will be used as a testing aid for new employees and as an assist in training.
At ITT Automotive in New Lexington (Perry County), Hocking College is a valuable source of training, says Gary Smith, Human Resources Manager. The college designs programs, which are certified through the school so that ITT's employees can get college credit. The college does some training at its new branch campus in Perry County and some at the plant. The company is now working with Hocking College to establish an industrial associate degree program.
Work force skills range from entry-level labor to highly skilled electricians, tool and die makers, maintenance engineers and jig and fixture specialists.
ITT also operates an apprenticeship program for skilled trades, which involves 8,000 hours of training.
ITT Automotive produces small diameter steel tubing, which it then makes into the automobile's "veins" -- fuel lines and transmission cooling lines and fuel vapor return lines. It employs 695 workers in its 300,000- sq. ft. plant. The company doubled the size of the facility three years ago.
Weastec is a Japanese-owned company which initially located in Highland County as a supplier for Honda. Now the company has branched out to do some work for Chrysler.
Weastec makes turn signal and wiper component and distributor coils, among other products. The company employs 535, and, in addition, farms out work to seven sub-assemblers in the area. Some employ part-time workers, whose schedules are geared to being home when their children return from school.
Weastec just opened a second assembly plant in Seamans Industrial Park on the Appalachian Highway in Adams County. One supplier to Weastec is Aeroframe and its sister company Maca Plastics in Adams County. The companies have grown rapidly -- starting up just three years ago, the work force now numbers 100.
