For the second consecutive year, a unique Ozarks-based partnership is making big waves in Springfield. The joint endeavor between international equipment giant Case New Holland Inc. and SRC Holdings Corp., CNH Reman LLC specializes in core parts supply. The five-year endeavor offers build-to-order and a standard stock of remanufactured parts utilized in the drive-train functions of CNH Reman’s heavy vehicles and equipment used in agriculture and construction.
Last year, CNH Reman bolstered its employee count by roughly 30 percent to nearly 200, while increasing its total product line to more than 3,500 parts. The moves are part of a long-range strategic plan to push sales to more than $135 million in 2014, while building toward a total inventory of nearly 4,500 remanufactured parts.
In 2013, the company grew year-over-year sales by $20.3 million. The bottom line is supported by a growing export base. The company grew export sales 42.3 percent in 2013, now counting clients in about 35 countries as customers.
Though big bottom-line growth numbers often grab much of the attention, the company’s customer satisfaction awards tell a deeper story.
In last year’s Carlisle Parts Manager survey for North American remanufacturing programs, CNH Reman claimed between 60 to 80 percent of the awards in all categories, including three out of the five Best in Class designations.
“All our fuel injection work is done in specially-designed clean rooms,” says CEO Tom Hilmes. “The competition is essentially doing the same thing on a workbench out back, so to speak. Our process eliminates all foreign particles down to two microns.”
Exercising the open-book management philosophy pioneered by SRC Holdings founder Jack Stack, CNH Reman operates under the mentality of total transparency. The company’s top two priorities are safety and quality, says Hilmes, and only after those do managers focus on productivity or efficiency. Employee development also was the impetus behind a 92 percent increase in staff training and tuition reimbursement during 2013.
“Our primary goal when we started was to bring all the related parts under one roof,” Hilmes says. “Over the last 18 months, the equipment’s started coming online and we’re bringing parts in-house that we used to purchase elsewhere, and now we’re really starting to build the labor pool – the supervision, the direct labor – to pull it all together.”
Despite such a well-developed strategic plan, Hilmes says demand for an expanded hydraulics products line left the company scrambling to accommodate. As a result, $5 million will be spent in 2014 on additional equipment, including $2 million to add remanufacturing capabilities for hydraulics, pushing the total capital investment to more than $11 million for the operation since beginning in 2009.
In addition, CNH Reman remains heavily invested in the local community, volunteering a cumulative 600 annual hours of community service last year alone. The company also hosts Boy Scouts, supports the United Way and adopts 18 unassigned foster youth at Christmas.[[In-content Ad]]
