Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 29, 1992 TAG: 9203300177
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GEORGE KEGLEY BUSINESS EDITOR
DATELINE: WYTHEVILLE LENGTH: Long
The privately owned plant, the largest industry in Wythe County, had grown to a work force of more than 650, a net gain of 500 in two years. The national car-buying slump in January forced a layoff of 99 workers. That left about 550 employees.
The company needed more employees in a hurry last year, explained Fred Starling, personnel manager, because it was producing new models in the Pontiac Bonneville, Buick LeSabre and Oldsmobile 88 lines. It needed the window channels "to fill up the pipeline [from assembly plants] to the dealerships," he said.
During its surge of growth, the plant's employment jumped from 150 in January 1990 to more than 650 last fall and company sales increased sixfold, Starling said.
In the hiring program, interviews were conducted 10 hours a day, Saturdays and Sundays, and the company brought in workers from throughout Wythe County, neighboring Pulaski and Smyth counties and even West Virginia, Starling said.
Business is stable and the plant is working three shifts a day "but the only holdback is volume and that's hurting," Starling said last week.
After a long corporate search, a new plant manager, John Marshall, will start work Monday. Marshall came from Sunbeam-Oster Co., where he was an engineering executive at its Holly Springs, Miss., plant.
General Motors' massive retrenchment, including recent plant closings, had no direct impact on the company, said Virginia Hahn, spokeswoman at the Newfields, N.H., offices of the company.
"What affects us is people buying GM cars," she said. "What does it take to get them to buy more GM cars? We could give an extra window channel . . . "
Hahn said her company is "designing for 1995 cars. We're looking well ahead."
The long, brick building in east Wytheville - 85,000 square feet - is a one-product plant, supplying window channels for Pontiacs, Buicks, Oldsmobilles and GM 300 models.
Like many American factories and offices, Kingston-Warren is in an employee participation, waste reduction program. The program, straight from General Motors, is called "synchronous manufacturing."
Ron Carpenter of GM in Warren, Mich. said the Kingston-Warren employees at Wytheville are "aggressively implementing" the synchronous manufacturing program. "Those people are aggressively eliminating simple forms of waste," such as excessive movement of inventory and unnecessary walking around the plant, he said. GM representatives conducted the 3 1/2-day workshops introducing the program.
Employees of Kingston-Warren, one of more than 800 suppliers using the GM program, are learning how to save floor space, reduce inventory and improve quality of production, Carpenter said. This results in savings of time and money, he added.
But the Wytheville plant has a distinctive twist to the popular concept of a self-directed work force. It has only nine supervisors "and that probably is too many," Starling said. People in the shop know what they're doing, he said, "and we need to get out of their way."
That amounts to a ratio of 50 or more workers per supervisor. Many factories have 20 or fewer employes for each supervisor.
The new concept became more important last year as the plant began turning out a totally different channel for new models. It was critical that the parts be perfect, Starling said.
"We know the guys on the [factory] floor. We're successful because of the work of the folks on the floor," he added.
Workers take strips of raw rubber through a complex process of heating and cutting to produce the channels. They are shipped to Kingston-Warren's Church Hill, Tenn., plant for packaging and shipment to GM plants.
The manufacturer has to meet strict Environmental Protection Agency regulations covering air emissions in the rubber processing.
"But the hardest thing is the collection of data" to meet GM specifications, which change daily, Starling said.
GM cars "are getting better and they hold our feet to the fire," he said.
Joe Braxton, a molder, looks for holes and splotches in the rubber on his eight-hour shift. Debbie Jordan checks for tears. "It's got to be perfect," she said.
Pam Cook is one of the company's many auditors. But she's a manufacturing - not financial - watchdog in the plant. "In reality, everybody is an auditor to make sure there are no defects," Starling said. The channel "is so expensive and labor-intensive that we can't afford to ship to GM and get it back. . . . We get very few back." The Wytheville plant operates on the "just in time" mode, building only what GM needs. "We know what they need next week and we order the parts," he said.
Starling, a big, jolly man clad in bluejeans and athletic shoes, spends much of his time clearing up details on the factory floor. He has a first-name greeting for most employees.
Kingston-Warren is "a sweet operation," said Robert Eley Johnson, former executive director of Wythe County Industrial Authority and the man who signed the company seven years ago.
Johnson met Don Sylvester, a corporate vice president, at a Howard Johnson's restaurant for breakfast and then showed him the vacant Templon Spinning Mills building beside the railroad tracks. "It looked so good that it scared him" because he had been told that he would have to look at 15 to 20 locations, Johnson said.
Sylvester said, "This place is a dream" and Kingston-Warren bought it for under $1 million, a good price, according to Johnson.
Templon, a former maker of knitted outwear and acrylic yarns, built the plant in 1967, and its British owner decided to close it in 1983. Eural Clippard, a former Templon plant manager, called it "an excellent building, with double brick walls and controlled humidity." Kingston-Warren has more than 20 acres for expansion, Clippard said.
Earl Joy, executive director of the joint Industrial Development Authority of Wythe County, Wytheville and Rural Retreat, said Kingston-Warren is the fastest growing and largest industry on his list.
Kingston-Warren rates well among GM's thousands of suppliers of original equipment. The company was among the first to receive GM's Targets for Excellence award, recognized by a plaque hanging on the wall of the Wytheville plant.
KINGSTON-WARREN CORP.\ A COMPANY PROFILE\ \ Business: The company has three plants: at Wytheville; Church Hill, Tenn., where it makes auto components; and its main location at Newfields, N.H. Other products include seals for computer doors, automotive window weather seals and material handling racks made at Newfields. Officers and a small headquarters staff are based at Southfield, Mich.\ \ History: Started in 1945 by the merger of Kingston Manufacturing and Warren Manufacturing, the company was acquired in 1986 by Harvard Industries of Farmingdale, N.J. Harvard Industries, coming out of Chapter 11 reorganization following default on bonds last year, is owned by William Hurley of Farmingdale, N.J. The Wytheville plant opened in 1985.\ \ Financial: Sales in 1991 were approaching $200 million. As a privately owned company, it did not report profits.\ \ Employees: 1,989: 550 at Wytheville, 700 at Church Hill and 739 at Newfields.
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