Case Study: Greenlee Textron
Wisco Industries has been doing business with Greenlee
Textron for over 50 years. In the early 1970s, we got involved in a
Contract Manufacturing
job with them to make a mechanical black-iron pipe bender that is used
to bend conduit "on the job". This was a major project for Wisco Industries in
those days, and it became a large portion of our business. We not only
made the metal parts, we welded and assembled the entire bender,
packaged it and delivered it to its distribution center ready for
shipment to its customers.Later in the 1970s, PVC pipe became popular in construction to replace the black-iron pipe for conduit. This pipe also needed to be bent to facilitate getting the electrical wires to the desired destination. Wisco Industries stepped up and offered to help in the design and manufacturing of the new PVC Pipe Bender. In the interim, Wisco Industries had developed a line of Food Service Equipment to serve the snack food industry. It included a Sandwich Oven that was used to heat and toast sandwiches in cellophane bags. In order not to fry the bag, a specific reflective material needed to be used that enhanced the 3 to 5 micron range of the infrared spectrum. This reflective material also proved useful in penetrating the heat into the PVC Pipe quickly and evenly to make the pipe supple to be bent to a specific radius. Wisco Industries made prototypes and submitted them to Greenlee for testing and ultimately secured the business of making a series of these benders, which we still make. The accompanying photos illustrate the area of our assembly plant devoted to manufacturing these as complete units. Just like the black-iron pipe benders, we ship these benders completely packaged and ready for shipment to Greenlee's customers on a weekly just-in-time basis. We control our work in process to allow Greenlee to add to its releases in order to accommodate its customer's urgent orders to where Greenlee enjoys a satisfaction percentage of over 90 percent.
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