We are a leading global designer, manufacturer and marketer of hoists, rigging
tools, cranes, actuators, and other material handling products serving a wide
variety of commercial and industrial end-user markets. Our products are used
to efficiently and ergonomically move, lift, position and secure objects and
loads. We are the U.S. market leader in hoists, our principal line of products,
as well as certain chain, forged fittings, and actuator products which we believe
provides us with a strategic advantage in selling other products. We have achieved
this leadership position through strategic acquisitions, our extensive, diverse
and well-established distribution channels and our commitment to product innovation
and quality. We have one of the most comprehensive product offerings in the
industry and we believe we have more overhead hoists in use in North America
than all of our competitors combined. Additionally, we believe we are the market
leader of manual hoist and actuator products in Europe, which provides us further
opportunity to sell other products through our existing distribution channels
in that region. Our products are sold globally and our brand names, including
CM, Coffing, Chester, Duff-Norton, Pfaff, Shaw-Box, Unified, STB, and Yale,
are among the most recognized and well-respected in the marketplace.
We participate predominantly in the hoist, crane, and monorail sector. We believe
that the demand for our products and services will be aided by several growth
drivers. These drivers include:
Productivity - We believe businesses respond to competitive pressures by seeking
to maximize productivity and efficiency, among other actions. Our hoists and
other lifting and positioning products allow loads to be lifted and placed quickly,
precisely, with little effort and fewer people, thereby increasing productivity
and reducing cycle time. Further, emphasis on “Lean” techniques
by many companies increases demand for our lifting and positioning products
for use in single-piece flow workstation applications.
Safety - Driven by workplace safety regulations such as the Occupational Safety
and Health Act (OSHA) and the Americans with Disabilities Act in the U.S. and
other safety regulations around the world, and by the general competitive need
to reduce costs such as health insurance premiums and workers’ compensation
expenses, businesses seek safer ways to lift and position loads. Our lifting
and positioning products enable these tasks to be performed with reduced risk
of personal injury.
Consolidation of Suppliers - In an effort to reduce costs and increase productivity,
our channel partners and end-user customers are increasingly consolidating their
suppliers. We believe that our broad product offering combined with our well
established brand names will enable us to benefit from this consolidation and
enhance our market share.
We design, manufacture and distribute a broad range of material handling products
for various applications. Products include a wide variety of electric, air-powered,
lever, and hand hoists, hoist trolleys, winches, industrial crane systems such
as steel bridge, gantry and jib cranes and aluminum work station cranes ; alloy
and carbon steel chain; forged attachments, such as hooks, shackles, textile
slings, clamps, logging tools and load binders; mechanical and electromechanical
actuators and rotary unions; below-the-hook special purpose lifters and tire
shredders. These products are typically manufactured for stock or assembled
to order from standard components and are sold primarily through a variety of
commercial distributors and to a lesser extent, directly to end-users. The diverse
end-users of our products are in a variety of industries including manufacturing,
power generation and distribution, utilities, wind power, warehouses, commercial
construction, oil and gas exploration and refining, petrochemical, marine, ship
building, transportation and heavy duty trucking, agriculture, logging and mining.
We also serve a niche market for the entertainment industry including permanent
and traveling concerts, live theater and sporting venues.
Hoists - We manufacture a wide variety of electric chain hoists, electric wire
rope hoists, hand-operated hoists, winches, lever tools and air-powered hoists.
Load capacities for our hoist product lines range from one-eighth of a ton to
80 tons. These products are sold under our Budgit, Chester, CM, Coffing, Little
Mule, Pfaff, Shaw-Box, Yale and other recognized brands. Our hoists are sold
for use in numerous general industrial applications, as well as for use in the
construction, energy, mining, food services, entertainment and other markets.
We also supply hoist trolleys, driven manually or by electric motors, that are
used in conjunction with hoists.
We also offer several lines of standard and custom-designed, below-the-hook
tooling, clamps, and textile strappings. Below-the-hook tooling, textile and
chain slings and associated forgings, and clamps are specialized lifting apparatus
used in a variety of lifting activities performed in conjunction with hoisting
or lifting applications.
Chain and Rigging Tools - We manufacture alloy and carbon steel chain for various
industrial and consumer applications. U.S. federal regulations require the use
of alloy chain, which we first developed, for overhead lifting applications
because of its strength and wear characteristics. A line of our alloy chain
is sold under the Herc-AlloyTM brand name for use in overhead lifting, pulling
and restraining applications. In addition, we also sell specialized load chain
for use in hoists, as well as three grades and multiple sizes of carbon steel
welded-link chain for various load securing and other non-overhead lifting applications.
We produce a broad line of alloy and carbon steel closed-die forged chain attachments,
including hooks, shackles, HammerloksTM, and master links. These forged attachments
are used in chain, wire rope and textile rigging applications in a variety of
industries, including transportation, mining, construction, marine, logging,
petrochemical and agriculture.
Our recent acquisition of Stahlhammer Bommern GmbH (STB) expands our rigging
tool offering by adding a variety of eye, shank and ramshorn lifting hooks and
deepens our exposure to targeted global vertical markets, such as Oil &
Gas, Mining, Construction and Heavy Equipment industries. We plan to further
extend STB’s product reach through our established global sales and distribution
network.
In addition, we manufacture carbon steel forged and stamped products, such as
load binders, logging tools and other securing devices, for sale to the industrial
and logging markets through industrial distributors, hardware distributors,
mass merchandiser outlets and OEMs.
Industrial Cranes - We participate in the U.S. crane manufacturing and servicing
markets through our offering of overhead bridge, jib and gantry cranes. Our
products are sold under the CES, Abell-Howe and Washington Equipment brands.
Crane builders represent a specific distribution channel for electric wire rope
hoists, chain hoists and other crane components.
Actuators and Rotary Unions - Through our Duff-Norton and Pfaff divisions,
we design and manufacture industrial components such as mechanical and electromechanical
actuators and rotary unions. Actuators are linear motion devices used in a variety
of industries, including the transportation, paper, steel, energy, aerospace
and many other commercial industries. Rotary unions are devices that transfer
a liquid or gas from a fixed pipe or hose to a rotating drum, cylinder or other
device. Rotary unions are used in a variety of industries including pulp and
paper, printing, textile and fabric manufacturing, rubber and plastic.
Overhead light rail workstations - With our acquisition of Unified Industries,
Inc in the prior year, we manufacture and market overhead aluminum light rail
workstations primarily used in automotive and other industrial applications.
Our products are sold under the Unified brand name.
Other - This category primarily includes tire shredders. We have developed and
patented a line of heavy equipment that shred whole tires, for use in recycling
the various components of a tire including: rubber and steel. These recycled
products also can be used as aggregate, playgrounds, sports surfaces, landscaping
and other such applications, as well as scrap steel.
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