Weldcoa Has a Better Way

In an increasingly competitive environment, the only safety for those at the forefront of our industry is in speed. Welding Company of America (Weldcoa), headquartered in North Lake, Illinois, has made it a practice to think outside of the box. The company prides itself on its ability to turn a product around faster than any other company in the industry. Its emphasis on constant innovation requires that management keep their ears to the ground, listening to their distributor customers. Weldcoa's success is based simply on the practice of being the company that makes solutions happen.


A BETTER MOUSETRAP

While the cylinder pallet remains at the core of Weldcoa's current success, today's Weldcoa sells an entire system which supports that pallet. Distributors can transport, store, secure or fill on Weldcoa's patented pallet system. The system is supported by other innovations, such as the various pallet manifolds, Liquid Cylinders, Industrial High Pressure and Acetylene. Truly. Weldcoa does morethan provide the distributor with a piece of metal and a handshake. Weldcoa supports distributors' businesses with everything they need in order to operate more efficiently and more profitably.

Maynard "Bud" Klotz, vice president of operations, uses the old cliché of building a better mousetrap to describe why his company remains unique in an increasingly competitive field. He explains, "Our ability to manufacture the entire system is the key to making the pallets work. The pallets, the truck and various other pieces are entirely integrated. To an end user, oxygen is oxygen, but a distributor's efficiency is what distinguishes him from his competition. The purpose of our products is to provide the distributor with the solutions needed to enhance efficiency."

Hector Villarreal, vice president of sales and marketing, refers to his company as one that mass-customizes its products. He says, "Every gas distributor out there has a different product mix, and we need to fulfill each individual's needs, tailoring our products accordingly. Our customers are forward-thinking industry leaders who appreciate innovations that will reduce their costs and enhance their profitability."

A HISTORY OF INNOVATION

Established in 1968 by current CEO Richard Bennett, Weldcoa has based its entire existence on outside-of-the-box thinking. The company was established as an in-house fabrication shop for Chicago based Benster Welding, a family-owned distributor of welding and gases. In an effort to more efficiently transport cylinders within his own facility, Bennett created a palletized system that carried a greater payload than his counterparts in Europe, proving to be more advantageous to his family's business. Soon his local competitors noticed that the Bennetts were moving equipment differently and approached Bennett with an offer to purchase the equipment.

By the early 1970s, Bennett realized Weldcoa's potential, sold his shares in the distributorship to his brother, and pursued a career of providing solutions to the gases and welding industry. One of his first employees, Peter Nielsen, remains at the helm today as president.

Weldcoa is the oldest and largest manufacturer of cylinder pallets and produces a pallet on its robotic welder every fifteen minutes, six days a week, twenty-four hours a day. With its reputation as a "problem-solver," all Weldcoa products are designed with one thing in mind: "There has to be a better way!" Villarreal explains, "We are an R&D company at heart." In order to deliver products with a real world application, the company continues to keep its ear to the ground, listening to the issues that distributors are facing and focused on providing solutions that work. And as Villarreal says, "If one distributor needs the product, another hundred likely need it as well."
In addition to creating the world's only integrated pallet system, Weldcoa is responsible for other industry firsts:

Weldcoa was the first company to utilize an inverted modular medical cylinder fill system. The advantage of this now common place design was to drain as much liquid as possible from the cylinder.

Weldcoa was the first to realize that the Department of Ttransportation would more strictly regulate the transportation of medical gas cylinders and, as a response to increased regulatory pressures, designed a medical cart hich locked the cylinders within the cart.

Weldcoa was the first to design a convertible palletized gas pack which wold help to narrow the gap between microbulk and the use of 6 and 12 packs, enabling the distributor to deliver more gas in less time.The first affordable, user friendly automated cylinder filling system for straight and mix gasses.

The latest innovations from Weldcoa include its new line of High Pressure and Cryogenic Hoses and an Automated Blending Station (ABS), which provide distributors with a turnkey approach to facilitate their entry into the specialty gas filling business in a cost efficient manner. This product is being unveiled April 2004 at the GAWDA/AWS event, and will revolutionize specialty gas filling.

Another new innovation, also to be premiered in April 2004, enables distributors to fill mixed gases in their cylinder banks quickly, efficiently, accurately and safely. The Weldcoa team is excited about this product, because it is a radical change in the way gases have always been filled.

EXPERIENCE COUNTS

The vast majority of Weldcoa's design team have worked in the gases industry prior to joining the company. They've delivered cylinders, they've filled cylinders, and they've repaired fill plant equipment. They think about the product and understand how it will be used by their distributor customers. They consider whether the product is likely to be in use ten years later. How will it function from an ergonomic perspective? They are uniquely qualified to manufacture the higher-end product that connotes quality and value. And their knowledge has helped create a product line that is built to last. In fact, some of Weldcoa's pallets that were built in year one are still in use almost thirty years later.
Over a third of Weldcoa's employees have been with the company for more than ten years. Many of them have been on the job for more than twenty years. This low turnover rate has facilitated the company's growth and provides a strong foundation for its future growth was to drain as much liquid as possible from the cylinder.

STAYING CURRENT WITH GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS

Almost all of Weldcoa’s products have been developed as a response to various regulatory pressures placed on the distributor. The Weldcoa team stays current and follows trends associated with the Department of Transportation, CFR49, the Food and Drug Administration, CFR21, OSHA, NFDA and other industry standards. Says Klotz, "The regs impact everything we do. When a ruling changes. we want to be the first one on board in order to help our customers comply."

THE FUTURE

Villarreal notes that the industry will continue to drive Weldcoa to create better, faster, safer products and because of this, the industry as a whole will continue to become more efficient, faster and safer.

In order to keep up with this more sophisticated customer, Weldcoa continues to enhance its operations, automating its processes in the factory and taking full advantage of all that technology has to offer. Customers' orders are filled more quickly and there is zero tolerance for errors. The response time continues to become shorter and inventory is managed very carefully, all in an effort to serve the customer better.

Bud Klotz and Hector Villarreal are like different sides of the same coin. Both have very different outlooks and approacheds to business. Together, they are responsible for the company's future. As different as they are from each other, they share a commitment to the spirit of innovation and to being first on the street with a new solution to meet their customers' needs. They also share a commitment to the quality that has long been synonymous with the Weldcoa name.

Their unique ability to think outside of the box is evidenced by the location of their offices. Realizing the importance of their ability to maintain open lines of communication, they made the decision to share a very large space as their office. A conference room table serves as a divider. As their different teams meet to discuss operational or sales and marketing issues, each executive remains informed of what the other's department is doing. Says Villarreal, "Even if I am not involved in Bud's meeting, I am informed and updated on what the company is doing operationally just experience, coupled with his fifteen years of real-world industry experience, is helping us to grow within an evolving structure in order to better serve our customers in the future," says Klotz. "We will continue to achieve a balance between a structure which will facilitate growth and an environment which facilitates a rapid response to the market's needs."

Most assuredly, the team led by Bud Klotz and Hector Villarreal is prepared to
become shorter and inventory is managed very carefully, all in an effort to serve the customer better.

Klotz and Villarreal will continue to add others to their team, adding new strengths as the company evolves. One such newcomer is a former U.S. Air Force Captain and BOC engineer, Carl Schmidt, Weldcoa's engineering manager. "Carl's militarylead Weldcoa into the future, committed to serving the distributor network with solutions that help them to operate their businesses more profitably. As Villarreal notes, "if not to listen to the distributor, why else are we here?"
Why else, indeed?