HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Goderich Signal-Star, 1986-11-05, Page 1091 3C
CHAMPIDN
GSS/Wednesday, Nov. 5, 1986
BY CHRIS DENNETT
he best way to participate in a
market is to be there, insists
Mike Sully, Vice President of
Manufacturing for Champion, in
explaining the major U.S. assembly
and manufacturing facilities the
company has maintained in
Columbia, South Carolina, since
1978.
It is a policy Champion has used
with great success in the United
States and in various joint venture
manufacturing agreements it holds
with countries around the world. "If
you can be•a major participant in a
country's economy rather than just a
marketer," insists Mr. Sully, "then
you can't help but do well." '
Champion entered the U.S.
manufacturing business determined
to prove that it was a major force in
the world's biggest road grader
market. Despite the significant
.market and manufacturing changes
that it and everyone of its
competitors have experienced over
the last half dozen years, Champion
continues to be a significant and
growing force in that market.
"There is absolutely no doubtthat
our presence in the U.S. has been
good for Champion," says Mr. Sully.
"You musn't forget that with an
estimated market of 4,000 graders a
year the U.S. market is' the largest
anywhere in the world.
The irony for Champion is that
eight years after it made its first
bold steps into the U.S. market it
remains as one of the few builders
still assembling road grader units in
that country.
"When we first opened in 1978 we
were up against as many as seven
road grader manufacturers. Today,
there are only three left and
Champion is one of them," said Mr.
Sully. That, he added, says a lot for
the competitiveness of the company
and its growing success in the U.S.
market during a time of tremendous
competition and change in the heavy
construction equipment market.
It is an edge the company remains
determined to capitalize on. in a road
grader market that is now showing
signs of fresh growth.
The Columbia, S.C. plant, he said,
is a first class, fully tooled plant of
about 150,000 square,. feet. As well as
holding an experienced workforce it
is also perfectly positioned close to
the major Atlantic port of Charleston
where it has easy access to the
export markets it requires.
From the very beginning, said Mr.
Sully, Columbia has been a major
exporting point for the company. It
has assembled, for example, .major
road grader orders for Egypt, El
Salvador, Peru and Syria.
The maintaining of a major
manufacturing presence in the U.S., •
he added, gives Champion an edge
over some competitors in road
grader orders that are paid for by
U.S. foreign aid sources.' .
There is no under -estimating
either the political value of being a •
U.S. manufacturer when the
company goes after major orders in
the U.S. domestic market. "If you
can say°you are an employer and a
taxpayer in the country it is going to
help sales tremendously," said Mr.
Sully.
Even with changes in the last year
Champion's, manufacturing facility In Columbia, South Carolina
which have centralized a great deal working base for other
manufacturing agreements that
Champion has put together with
other countries around the world.
Although primary manufacturing
and assembly is still focussed on
Goderich and Columbia, S.C.,
Champion is also a significant joint
venture partner in manufacturing
and component manufacturing
agreements with New Zealand,
South Africa, Thailand and China.
In each case, said Mr. Sully,
Champion has figured that the best
way to compete in an offshore
market is to be there. That was what
led to a licencing arrangement in
New Zealand and a joint venture
manufacturing agreement in South
Africa.
It was also the reason behind
Champion's recent decision to enter
a joint venture agreement m
Thailand where the company is keen
to build a major Far East
manufacturing base that can
compete head to head with Japanese
competition.
And it is most certainly the reason
for Champion's component
manufacturing agreement with
China which has led to the steady
flow of high quality parts to the
home plant in Goderich. The hope
still is that that initial investment in
there. They care about us and want the world's most populace country
to see us prosper," said Mr. Sully. will lead to significent road grader
It is a relationship that has worked business at some point in the future.
Well ever since South Carolina It takes time and patience to put
tempted Champion away from a site together international agreements,
said Mr. Sully, but in the newly
competitive world of road grader
manufacture they have won for the
company a great deal of opportunity • •
of the Champion road grader
processes at the home plant in
Goderich, Columbia continues to be
a major focus of the company's U.S.
activities, Mr. Sully said.
Champion has been forced to
consider its manufacturing
operations with the same intensity
as has every one of its competitors
over the last few years, said Mr.
Sully. For Columbia, that has meant
the change from a primary
manufacturing facility to an
assembly operation using grader
parts supplied by the home base in
Goderich.
That switch has meant the
transference of 117 manufacturing
jobs from Columbia to Goderich but
it has done nothing to mar the fine
U.S. marketing organization that the
company has built with painstaking
care over the last few, yearr'he
U.S. sales organization remains
entirely responsible for that
country's domestic and export sales
markets and the Columbia base
remains responsible for the
assembly and shipping of those
orders.
South Carolina, both politically
and economically, has been very
kind to Champion, said Mr. Sully.
"We feel part of the family down
in Kentucky which had been the
company's first choice for a U.S.
manufacturing site. The U.S.
experience has also provided a