World Class Industries plans a new front door

World Class Industries CEO Brent Cobb, shown in his Hiawatha office. PHOTO GABE HAVEL

 

By Dave DeWitte
dave@corridorbusiness.com

A new $8 million facility being planned by World Class Industries (WCI) in Hiawatha will provide much-needed capacity for the growing contract manufacturer, but just as importantly, a better way to “integrate” with customers.

WCI builds subassemblies for equipment manufacturers such as Deere and Caterpillar and ships them to the final assembly points just in time. It’s a growth industry, as machinery such as combines and graders is growing more sophisticated and complex.

“One of the challenges we have when we talk to the customer is explaining what we do,” CEO Brent Cobb said.

The new facility is designed to address that challenge with a display of actual manufacturing projects WCI has at eight different locations, and a conference room to discuss projects with prospective or current clients and walk them through the project lifecycle.

A typical project is a hood assembly for a piece of mechanized agricultural equipment, including the headlights, sides and engine hood – more than 70 parts in all. WCI assembles them efficiently and precisely, to the manufacturer’s specifications.

A key point of competitive differentiation for the company is its ability to seamlessly integrate the flow of materials, production and information with customers so that both WCI’s teams and its customers have up-to-the-minute information on materials and workflow. WCI adjusts to the customer, not the other way around.

“They’re the 1,000-pound gorilla, and we’re not there to rock the boat and tell them how to do things,” Mr. Cobb said.

The manufacturing area of the new facility will function much like an incubator space for newer projects, Mr. Cobb said. Typically, WCI can’t justify locating its own assembly facility near a customer’s final assembly plant until it has about five assembly projects from that customer.

“It’s an onboarding facility for new customers,” Mr. Cobb said, “an incubator as we’re growing the relationship until it gets to the size that would justify opening a location near their factory.”

WCI builds the subassemblies in work cells. The largest cells involve six or seven people, while a standard cell involves two or three, Mr. Cobb said. Although not highly automated, they typically have a PLC (programmable logic controller) that helps guide and track the assembly process, including a scanner to validate that the right component parts are being used.

“Typically, we’re assembling multiple versions of the same thing in a cell,” Mr. Cobb said. “Usually 80-90 percent of the parts used for a build are common, and others are specific to a product.”

The new Hiawatha facility will enable WCI to set up the work cells to “get the kinks out,” sorting out such things as where the power sources and network connections will be located before the cells are ever deployed at a remote location. Because the components WCI is asked to assemble keeping getting larger, one of the unique pieces of equipment at the facility will be an overhead crane to ease the process of moving them.

The 50,000-square-foot facility will be located on a 13-acre site north of CCB Packaging, about two miles from WCI’s existing facility at 925 N. 15th St., Hiawatha, and is still in the design phase. Mr. Cobb said the size of the site will allow for “a couple of expansions” as needed in the future.

The new facility is expected to bring with it 28 new jobs, adding to WCI’s growing base of about 165 Hiawatha employees.