(Editor’s note: This is the 23rd 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.)
John Tomaz flips a switch and a familiar mechanical humming echoes through Wardwell Braiding Co.’s manufacturing floor.
It’s the sound of many carriers, bobbins and wires working in harmony within one of Wardwell’s braiding machines to produce a single braid.
Eight carriers – the cylinders that hold the bobbins – are mounted on metal rings that rotate in the opposite direction from another set of eight carriers positioned just above. As the carriers rotated, Tomaz, vice president of Wardwell, pointed to a single strand weaving its way through the intricate system of parts and up into the braid that was forming on top of the machine.
“Over two, under two. Over two, under two,” he said, describing how the strand moves swiftly through the carriers.
While 16- and 24-carrier machines are the most common, Wardwell offers a variety of sizes with as many as 144 carriers.
Each year, the Central Falls-based manufacturer produces hundreds of the machines, which have anywhere from 200 to 1,000 different parts. And Wardwell makes almost all of those parts.
“There’s a lot of work that goes into this,” Tomaz said, holding a single finished bobbin carrier from an original Wardwell braiding machine.
The process starts from scratch, with employees taking raw materials and cleaning them off.
Then they go to various stations throughout Wardwell’s 105,000-square-foot facility, where they each will go through a series of steps from pressing, molding, polishing and painting.
Then once each piece is completed, they go into a stock room where they await assembly. Once a machine is assembled, Wardwell runs a test braid before it’s packed up and shipped to the customer.
“There’s a lot of planning and a lot of scheduling,” Tomaz said.
Because Wardwell has so many parts on different machines, the company also keeps a list of around 100 parts that customers tend to ask for replacements of because they wear out or break more easily.
Machines awaiting repairs also sit on one section of Wardwell’s manufacturing floor.
Walking by a set of green braiding machines, Tomaz noted their color indicates they were made sometime before 1987.
Indeed, Wardwell machines are known to be enduring.
“We support every machine that we sell, and [that] we’ve sold,” Tomaz said. “There are very few things that have been obsoleted.”
Tomaz recalled a time when he received a fax from a stranger in Mexico in the early 2000s asking for manuals because they needed repairs. Coincidentally, the fax came a week before Tomaz was traveling there and he offered to meet with them.
Once Tomaz arrived at the customer’s showroom, he noticed that their four braiding machines looked odd. They were smaller than what Wardwell usually makes and almost like the owner had modified them, so Tomaz took down the serial numbers to search the engineering archives back in Rhode Island.
[caption id="attachment_472213" align="alignright" width="454"]
BRAID MAKER:
One of the braiding machines made by Wardwell Braiding Co.
PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO[/caption]
Tomaz found that the braiding machines were part of a 30-machine batch Wardwell had sold in 1970.
“They eventually bought new ones,” Tomaz said, noting that the machines had parts Wardwell hadn’t made in a long time and the cost of repairs would be more than the replacement.
The company was founded in 1911 by inventor Simon Wardwell, who patented a high-speed braiding machine, and Wardwell has operated in the same location ever since, Tomaz said.
Since the beginning, Wardwell machines have been used all over the world in a wide range of industries from textiles, medical, food and drug, as well as wire and cables.
The first machine shipped by Wardwell went to Belden Wire & Cable, which was the largest cable manufacturer in the world for a long time, Tomaz said.
“Right from the beginning, we were involved in the cable and wire industry,” Tomaz said.
Cables, like those connecting a computer mouse to a desktop, need a braided shield to protect it from “crosstalk,” or noise that interferes with the signals between the devices. And even wireless devices have many tiny cables running through them that need protection, Tomaz said.
Many other cords, such as those used for ironing, also have shields made of braided textiles. These shields cover the cables while also allowing them to be flexible, preventing them from getting stretched and protecting people from getting shocked if they cut through it.
The manufacturer offers two lines of braiding machines and equipment to support them. One line is the high-speed machine designed by Wardwell and the other is a slower machine originally developed by New England Butt Co., which Wardwell acquired in 1987.
Tomaz, who started with the company in maintenance 46 years ago, recalled there was a major shift in the industry in 2001. Around this time, companies were moving technology and manufacturing to Southeast Asia and China, said Tomaz, who was a sales engineer responsible for clients in Asia.
“Wardwell was affected in a major way,” Tomaz said. “Financially, it was a big burden.”
During this period, companies – many of which were Wardwell clients – went through mergers and acquisitions, leading to some operations to be shut down. So, there were customers calling Wardwell asking to put contracts on hold because they simply didn’t have the facility for machines, Tomaz said.
But 2001 was also the year when Wardwell had gone into debt to acquire a company based in western Germany. Then, while the company was still struggling, the financial crisis hit, and Wardwell went into receivership in 2009.
The Wilms Group, a company based in Germany that owns several other equipment suppliers, ended up purchasing Wardwell in December 2009 and it has bounced back from its financial struggles. In the past 14 years, Tomaz said the company has never had a negative month and never had to lay off one of its 48 employees – even during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Part of this turnaround came from the motivation to take care of both Wardwell’s customers and employees, Tomaz said.
“We’ve had employees that have been with us a long time and … when we leave here, we want the company to still be here,” Tomaz said. “We want people to be employed and we want our customers to rest at ease.”
