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USA
Hexpol Reveal Robbins Re-organisation and Development Strategy
When the Malmo, Sweden based Hexpol Group acquired Robbins in 2012, it became the first major industrial group to own the envelope and curing tube manufacturer. In the three years since the acquisition, the new owners, whose activities and expertise cover every conceivable type of rubber compound, have introduced a number of measures at the Robbins plant in Alabama that have been designed to provide additional focus to the company’s operations and to help it to expand globally, developing its existing position as a dominant player in the North American market.
The three men charged with achieving this are Managing Director Terry Elgin, Senior Sales Manager Molded Products and Business Development Hugo Sandberg, and Operations Manager Bob Cooper.
development facilities, an extrusion line, an on-site test chamber, 2 flat compression presses, 24 curing tube presses, 7 compression mould presses and 5 inner envelope presses.”
The next major move was to bring Terry Elgin in as Managing Director with primary responsibility for production and quality. Elgin has 31 years’ experience elsewhere within the Hexpol Group and was brought in to implement a new production strategy. He is ably assisted by Bob Cooper, whose role has been expanded from Production Manager to his current role of Operations Manager.
Says Elgin; “We have retrained all our 50 production associates and invested heavily in people, tooling, and processes. We’ve also increased our production quality standards and
moved to 24-hour production, in order to minimise downtime.” One key investment made has been the Teflon coating of every mould in the plant. This has assured easy release of the envelopes, the better flow of rubber for more even thickness, and the removal of the need to use lube in order to stack envelopes.
The company has also adjusted the thickness of the bead and skirt area, increasing thickness by an average of 43%. This, says Sandberg, has made the envelopes more resistant to injury when coming into contact with J-hooks, sealing rings, and spreaders. This process
has been implemented with Robbins’ top 8 sizes, which make up the majority of the company’s production.
Terry Elgin points out that Robbins has also implemented a post-mould testing programme, using trained personnel and inspection spreaders, which has helped improve outgoing quality. New product markings have also been introduced. Envelopes were previously marked using a colour scheme, but now the company marks all its envelopes in white lettering to avoid fading, backed up with a coloured dot. The Robbins logo has now also been embedded into the mould.
According to Elgin, the improvements have resulted in a number of key benefits, namely the improved look of the envelopes, improved flow of the rubber, improved tear resistance,
fewer envelope failures, and more cures per envelope.
In addition to their activities within the Muscle Shoals plant, Robbins are making considerable efforts to increase their field presence and to improve the message that is being given to customers, emphasising the key reasons for buying Robbins products. These, says Bob Cooper, are fivefold.
leadership and trains its staff according to these principles.
As for the future, Hexpol will continue to invest in the Muscle Shoals facility, with new moulds on the agenda for next year.
“We are currently focusing on improving our production processes,” says Elgin, “and we try to look closely at those areas we can impact most effectively. Last year was
Left to right; Bob Cooper, Hugo Sandberg and Terry Elgin
“Our products provide the lowest cost per cure, they are US made, they are available in the widest product offering, including OTR, every envelope is tested on a spreader before packaging, and we offer worldwide coverage,” he points out. “This message is being reinforced with new brochures and an improved message,” he adds.
Training is also an important part of Hexpol’s development strategy. The Group follows a strategy of promotion from within, so the training and development of staff is given the highest priority. With this in mind, the company subscribes to the John Maxwell system of
just the first step. However, at Hexpol, we can say that everything starts with quality. It is our group policy that all our manufacturing plants are, or will be, certified to both ISO 9001 and ISO 14001.”
In terms of market development, the company is also showing ambition to grow. Says Hugo Sandberg; “Markets around the world are very fluid. We have a dominant share here in North America, but we are never satisfied in our quest to continually develop our market share and are looking to make inroads in every market around the world, depending on local market indicators.”
They note that nothing would be possible without the great team they have in Alabama. We travelled to Robbins 225,000 sq ft plant in the small town of Muscle Shoals to find out more about the plans that have been implemented by Hexpol since the acquisition.
According to Hugo Sandberg, one of the first things that Hexpol did was to discontinue custom mixing at the Muscle Shoals facility and turn it into a dedicated moulded products plant for the retreading industry.
“We have state-of-the-art custom mixing facilities elsewhere within the Hexpol Group,” explained Sandberg, “and we realised early on that we needed to dedicate our Muscle Shoals facility to our interests in the retread sector. Consequently, everything we do relating to retreading is here in Muscle Shoals, including design and
34 Retreading Business