(Editor’s note: This is the sixth installment in a monthly series highlighting some of the region’s unsung manufacturers that make products essential to the economy and, in many cases, our way of life. See previous installments here.)
The hammering staccato of drilling echoes through US Extruders Inc.’s cavernous warehouse as a pair of assembly workers installs gleaming metal ducts along an outer wall.
It’s the final days of preparation before the Westerly company puts its latest research venture to the test: recycling end-of-life fishing nets into plastic pellets that can be used to make other products.
Bill Kramer, company president, sifts sand-like shreds of blue-green netting through his fingers. His even tone rises with excitement as he explains the process.
“Our goal is to understand what it takes to run different materials [through an extruder machine] to sell equipment to people interested in using it,” Kramer said. “No one is doing fishing nets yet.”
An engineer with nearly half a century of experience in extrusion manufacturing, Kramer’s thirst for innovation is never quenched.
“I am the guy who comes up with the crazy idea on the back of the napkin and pushes to see if it will work,” he said.
That same philosophy lies at the heart of US Extruders. Since opening in 2017, the plastic extrusion machine manufacturer has grown quickly, able to compete with much larger and longer-standing companies such as rival Davis-Standard LLC of Stonington, Conn. Kramer attributes the company’s success to its relentless desire to improve.
This includes taking what he and the other six founders have learned from prior experiences. The seven founders struck out on their own after their former workplace, American Kuhne, was sold and its Ashaway extrusion manufacturing plant in Hopkinton shut down in 2015.
“It was kind of a low time,” Kramer said. As co-founder and president of American Kuhne, he felt personally responsible for the 50 workers now forced to move to Pennsylvania or else lose their jobs.
So, he started over, bringing with him a team of experts in screw design, operations, marketing, purchasing and sales.
For two years, the fledgling staff worked quietly to put the pieces in place; bound by noncompete agreements, they couldn’t open a rival company right away.
U.S. Extruders CEO Dan Schilke, who worked directly under Kramer at American Kuhne, bought a half-empty warehouse in an industrial park near the Westerly Airport. The building was “kind of in shambles” from years of sitting empty, Kramer said. But Schilke transformed it into a state-of-art manufacturing environment, renting out a small section of the 40,000-square-foot space to the previous owner to bring in some extra money.
They hired many of the workers made jobless after American Kuhne closed, and they also gathered a roster of potential customers. U.S. Extruders now has 33 employees.
Graham Engineering Corp., which bought American Kuhne, sued Kramer in Pennsylvania District Court in 2016 for violating noncompete agreements, according to news reports.
Schilke declined to comment on the lawsuit, except to say, “In the end, I’d say we won because we’re functioning.”
Functioning, and thriving. The company has reported steady growth even through the pandemic and subsequent supply chain slowdowns.
“I think the lawsuit really drew us closer together,” Schilke said.
Tthe company puts a focus on domestic suppliers, with more than half of the sheet metal, stainless steel, electrical paneling and other parts coming from companies in Rhode Island, Connecticut and Massachusetts.
[caption id="attachment_430666" align="alignright" width="267"]
ON THE FLOOR: John Riendeau works in business development for US Extruders Inc., a Westerly manufacturer that makes plastic extruders for automotive, medical and construction companies.
PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO[/caption]
For Kramer, the emphasis on local suppliers is both philosophical and practical.
“One of the things we’re committed to is being able to stand behind our machinery and deliver what we promised, and it’s very hard to do that with foreign equipment because it just lengthens the supply chain,” Kramer said.
They haven’t avoided the pain of shipping delays and material shortages entirely. A nationwide shortage of semiconductor chips, which are used in the machine’s touch-screen control panels, left machines half-finished for up to a year, sitting on the factory floor.
Customers are understanding, in part because of the company’s emphasis on constant communication, which Kramer sees as a differentiator.
“Customers often are frustrated by the responses they get from other manufacturers because things aren’t exactly what they promised,” he said. “We’ve always approached our business as doing the right thing first and worrying about the cost later. It’s surprising how well that works.”
Each of the 50,000-pound painted steel machines is custom designed before being assembled, with a test run of the company’s product on-premises before it ships out.
Integral to the machinery are the signature extruder screws. Sometimes as small as half an inch wide, the ridged, steel parts spin faster and faster to melt plastic, which can be reshaped into catheters, wire tubing, cables or film, among other products. Kevin Slusarz, the company’s director of process technology and a founding member, is one of a handful of experts nationwide with the knowledge and experience to craft the stainless steel screws, according to Kramer.
Whether for a medical device company or a plastic packaging manufacturer, the basic mechanics and features of each machine remain the same. It’s in the 10% of variability – adding wheels below the base or nixing the electric motor gearbox to make the machine quieter (often requested by medical device customers) – that Kramer gets to scratch his innovation itch.
“What seems like a really small change can affect a lot of things,” he said.
Now in his 70s, Kramer has cut back to part-time work, focused mostly on innovation.
“Unlike our engineers, who have the responsibility to make something work, I can just create something and throw it at them and see if they can test it,” he said.
He also deals with customers, and is the introduction voice on the company’s podcast, “Med-Ex, the medical extrusion podcast,” which started last year.
Schilke leads the day-to-day operations, overseeing assembly on the floor, driving out to suppliers and working with back-office staff. But much like an extruder machine, it’s the sum of all the parts – in this case, the people – that make the company shine.
“We all have really different backgrounds and areas of expertise,” Schilke said of the seven founding members.
The company is also willing to train novices, and has hired several to work on its assembly team, aided by federal COVID-19 funding administered through Polaris MEP’s Machine & Marine program.
“They are really doing a good job of setting career pathways,” said Lindsey Brickle, Polaris MEP’s senior workforce manager. “They don’t just train workers; they are focused on improving their job quality and leveraging a lot of state programs.”
Soon, the leadership team will bring those diverse perspectives to the table again to debate results of the test runs on the fishing net recycling project. There’s scientific analysis – ensuring that the heated and recycled plastic pellets are strong enough to be reused. Then there’s the business side, which includes finding a company that is interested in buying a machine to recycle fishing nets.
So far, they haven’t found any takers, but Kramer isn’t dissuaded.
“Opportunities to try something new don’t always look great in the beginning,” he said. “You have to see beyond that.”
