For at least seven factory workers in Benton Harbor, today had to be, as Yogi Berra once said, “Like deja vu all over again!” The Benton Harbor Tiger Marching Band marched on the perimeter of a big top tent, a picnic lunch was served, and company officials celebrated the 20th Anniversary year for the Worthington Armstrong Venture known to the community of Michigan’s Great Southwest as simply WAVE.
On this same day in 1999 the newly minted WAVE facility was welcomed to the community under the big top with a rousing picnic lunch celebrating the successful recruitment by Cornerstone Alliance of the joint venture between Worthington Steel and Armstrong Tile Company that has continued to flourish in the industrial park along Enterprise Way just east of the Woodridge neighborhood of Benton Charter Township.
Seven of the first rank of employees are still with the company 20 years later, and it would have been nine but two others just retired in recent weeks. Both longevity on the job and extremely low turnover are hallmarks of the WAVE team, which boasts an average tenure of 15 years on the job for the 30 to 35 employees on payroll year round.
The entire WAVE corporate group just celebrated 25 years in business, while the Benton Harbor unit marks 20 years in town.
Jude Hentz, Operations Manager at WAVE says he’s got a “Very strong team, and one that is always busy, especially at this time of the year when summer activity ramps up.” The WAVE crew manufactures suspended ceiling systems, creating the steel grid systems that hold the Armstrong Tile ceiling products.
The company has scored record performances most every year that they’ve been in operation in Benton Harbor, a decision that proved to be a great one because the team’s culture has been fantastic since day one. If you were to place each grid piece they manufactured in Benton Harbor last year end to end it would add up to 132,000,0000 feet — that’s 132-million feet — enough to circle the globe. They are operating four lines on two shifts cranking out product like nobody’s business.
Hentz tells me they are “Definitely adding to our entire product line, as WAVE is on the cutting edge for new product development, and things are changing. We’ve added a number of items over the course of the years, some of which are are the sole supplier for in all of WAVE North America.” All that despite being the smallest of three major American facilities. Hentz says, “Our east coast facility is three to four times as large as we are, and the world’s largest grid facility. They have 40 production lines, we have four.” North Las Vegas, Nevada is the third U.S. facility and there are several overseas production sites as well.
Hentz says the future looks bright, adding, “Business continues to be strong. Every year we seem to score record years, and we’ve been at it a long time.” He places a tremendous amount of credit for their great success to a major culture that always puts “Safety First.” In fact, his facility boasts an incredible safety record, noting, “From a lost time perspective, we’ve gone 16 and a half years without a lost time injury, and 3 and a half years without a recordable injury.” He adds, “We have 100-percent employee involvement in safety. We have safety sub-committees and always lead with safety.”
A few years back the company retired their tradition of a Morning Soap Box where employees could share whatever they wished, but they still host daily meetings in the break room, and on hot days like today he says, “Everyone appreciates a couple of extra minutes in the air conditioning before hitting the floor.”
The plant takes in raw materials in the form of slitted steel rolls from Arlington Metals in Sawyer. While WAVE did install a rail spur, it has never been employed, and trucks haul in 100,000 pounds at a time with Arlington as their primary supplier from a slitting perspective for their hot-dipped, galvanized base lines. WAVE does all the roll forming and then it goes through a stamping press process to create the actual grid pieces for contractors, do it yourselfers and home improvement teams.
It’s an extremely fast-moving process with lines running 400 to 500 feet per minute. One of the most often asked questions during plant tours is “How long do you think it takes to make a single piece of grid?” with answers ranging from 5-minutes to 5-hours when in reality it takes than one minute to make 60-pieces, so it is clearly a lightning fast operation.
Hentz has called the plant at 745 Enterprise Way home since the beginning, coming here from the Las Vegas facility and before that he was with Worthington Steel.
WAVE has designed and manufactured the most innovative commercial suspended ceiling and drywall grid systems and accessories on the market, resulting in sustained and unmatched venture success for both parents. WAVE has established worldwide leadership in the production of suspended ceiling systems. WAVE produces metal ceiling grids that can combine with Armstrong ceiling boards as a complete package or can be sold individually.
With a focus on providing customers with total ceiling solutions that save time and money, WAVE’s most recent innovations include LED lighting integration solutions; pre-engineered drywall ceiling suspension systems that are up to four times faster to install than traditional track and channel framing; and extruded aluminum perimeters, transitions, and trims for use with suspended panels or drywall to seamlessly finish a room.
Headquartered in Malvern, Pa. and founded in 1992, WAVE, a joint venture between Armstrong World Industries and Worthington Industries, has grown to become the global leader in commercial and residential ceiling suspension systems with market-leading positions everywhere it does business. WAVE has over 600 employees and a global manufacturing network of nine facilities in China, France, India, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Armstrong World Industries, Inc. is a global leader in the design and manufacture of innovative commercial and residential ceiling, wall and suspension system solutions. With over 3,800 employees and fiscal 2016 revenues from ceiling operations in excess of $1.2 billion, AWI operates from a global manufacturing network of 26 facilities, including nine plants dedicated to its WAVE joint venture.
Worthington Industries is a leading global diversified metals manufacturing company with 2016 fiscal year sales of $2.8 billion. Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, Worthington is North America’s premier value-added steel processor providing customers with wide ranging capabilities, products and services for a variety of markets including automotive, construction and agriculture; a global leader in manufacturing pressure cylinders for industrial gas and cryogenic applications, CNG and LNG storage, Cryogenic transportation and storage and alternative fuel tanks, oil and gas equipment, and consumer products for camping, grilling, hand torch solutions and helium balloon kits; and a manufacturer of operator cabs for heavy mobile industrial equipment; laser welded blanks for light weighting applications; automotive racking solutions; and through joint ventures, complete ceiling grid solutions; automotive tooling and stampings; and steel framing for commercial construction. Worthington employs approximately 11,000 people and operates 84 facilities in 11 countries.
