Kinedyne expands Alabama Facility, consolidates diversified operations
Kinedyne LLC, manufacturer and distributor of cargo control products for the transportation industry, announced that it is close to completing a major relocation, consolidation and expansion effort designed to make the company more efficient, competitive and responsive to its customers’ needs.
The expanded 200,000-square-foot facility will now house a wide range of employees specializing in engineering, manufacturing, quality control, supply chain management, customer service and government contracts. The move came as a result of a strategic plan initiated by the company’s leadership, aimed at achieving gains in overall speed, efficiency, productivity and improvements resulting from a unified corporate culture.
“Ours is an extremely competitive marketplace,” Steve Atzeni, vice president of North American Operations for Kinedyne LLC, said. “This consolidation of talent and resources will help Kinedyne stay as competitive in the next 50 years as it has been for the last 50.”
Previous to the move, the company’s engineering and quality control functions primarily resided at its Branchburg, New Jersey and Lawrence, Kansas locations, while manufacturing, quality control, supply chain management, customer service and government contract staff were spread across locations in Kansas, Nevada and Alabama.
“Our previous geographic separation made higher levels of collaboration, teamwork and productivity more challenging,” Atzeni said. “There is something to be said for being able to sit around a table and communicate with your colleagues face to face in the same room.”
The company maintains offices in all previous locations, with the exception of Kansas, and some staff took advantage of relocation options. Even with the closing of the Kansas facility, Kinedyne expects the net increase in jobs to total about 40 new positions in Prattville, resulting from the growth of business opportunities nationwide.
“Kinedyne has been a great industrial Partner of Prattville,” stated Mayor Bill Gillespie, Jr. “We’re proud that as a corporate Partner of Prattville, Kinedyne decided to live, work and invest in this community as well as investing in themselves. Those investments equate to economic prosperity for us all. We remain as committed to our relationship with Kinedyne as we are to industrial recruitment and local investment in the community much like Daniel Pratt was when he settled here, built the Pratt Gin Company and made Prattville the birthplace of industry in the great state of Alabama.”
“In addition to the tremendous efforts of our executive and local management teams, the state of Alabama, the county of Autauga and the city of Prattville have helped to make this move a true success story for everyone involved,” Dan Schlotterbeck, president of Kinedyne LLC, said. “A robust business climate combined with exemplary state, county and municipal support made our choice to invest in this location the right one for our business to benefit and add value in the long term for our customers.”
Supply chain management and customer service staff, considered critical to serving customer needs, are just now completing the relocation process. Extra effort is being made to both maintain and enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of these two important departments.
“Customer service, prompt order processing and product delivery are critical to our continued success and to the maintenance of the high standards we have established within our industry,” Paul Wolford, vice president of sales and marketing for Kinedyne LLC, said. “Now, with supply chain management and customer service in one place, we expect to set the bar even higher.”
The Prattville manufacturing operation includes equipment dedicated to the weaving of webbing, finishing and sewing, creating everything from cargo nets, to tow straps, to helicopter slings and Kinedyne’s renowned load securement straps. The facility also has a test lab with extensive capabilities, including those assessing webbing load capacity and breaking strength.
The Alabama plant is also responsible for the manufacturing of Kinedyne’s Kaptive Beam Decking System. Kinedyne’s Kaptive Beam Decking System enables users to increase asset utility by increasing a trailer’s load density by up to 50 percent.
Kaptive Beam manufacturing operations include aluminum beam extrusions and the machining and fabrication of the Kaptive Beam’s unique head assembly made from zinc-plated steel and anodized high-strength aluminum. The head assembly also includes a heavy-duty, spring-loaded trigger mechanism that automatically locks the beam into its track slots.
