Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
Drive down any highway or interstate and the chances are you'll see a piece of Kosciusko County rolling along.
According to Dan Franke, director of operations for Midwest Roll Forming & Mfg. Inc. in Pierceton, the company's steel products are used in the manufacture of most semi-trailers criss-crossing the nation's highways.
"If you see a trailer on the road, chances are we have parts in it," Franke said. "The reason we came here was that most of the trailer manufacturers are here in Indiana."
These trailer manufacturers include Monroe, Strict, Wabash and Utilmaster, just to name a few, Franke added.
The firm has experienced phenomenal growth, increasing its workforce almost 20-fold and expanding the facility three times in 10 years, he said.
"We're doing $30 million per year in business. We've come a long way from nothing, the first couple of years, when we started with just four employees," Franke said. "Today, we have 13 administrative and 65 production employees and have never had a lay-off. We're looking to hire more this coming year, too."
The company uses rolled steel to make the roof bows, side posts and wear bands for the trailer industry. Franke said at their current production rate, they turn out 250,000 pounds of steel moldings per day.
And that growth isn't expected to decrease in the future. Because of more and more companies going to the "just-in-time" supply cycles, where smaller but more frequent deliveries of materials are needed, Franke said, the number of semi trailers needed to meet that demand will continue to grow.
And Midwest will grow with the increase in demand.
"We're going to change the (corporate) culture of this place," he said. "Go from a small shop to a big-time manufacturing facility."
One factor that will help that change will be the company's certification by the Industrial Standards Organization, which sets the quality standards relied upon in international trade.
"We're just about to get the ISO 2000 certification," Franke said. "Once we get that, it will allow us to go international."
But, despite the move to the "big-time," Midwest is also trying to maintain a hometown, family atmosphere as well, Franke added. Husband-and-wife teams and other family members are employed frequently.
"We try to encourage that family-friendly environment," he said. "And that translates over into our employees getting involved in the community."
As an example of that involvement, Franke pointed out the company's participation in the Pierceton Days parade last month.
"That was something the employees on the floor thought would be nice to do for the town," he said. "They even came up with the slogan for the float - 'Steel Rolling Along.'"
