Briggs Auburn Plant Shifts Gears, Accelerates Focus on V-Twin Engine Production

AUBURN, Ala., Aug. 28, 2012 -- Since its opening in August 1995, the Briggs and Stratton plant in Auburn, Ala. has manufactured a wide range of products. Now, starting its 18th year of production, the team at Auburn – over 400 employees strong – will switch from flexible to focused, as the plant transitions from producing multiple products to becoming a dedicated V-twin (twin cylinder) engine manufacturing facility to better meet marketplace needs.

In recent years, the demand for V-twin engines has increased as more U.S. homeowners and commercial lawn service companies have sought to buy zero-turn riding mowers and premium lawn tractors.  The Auburn facility has increased production to keep pace with this change in consumer preferences and demand for v-twin engines is expected to remain strong.  As this trend towards v-twin engines evolved, Briggs and Stratton launched new products such as the Professional Series™ and Commercial Turf Series™ engines, both produced in Auburn, to penetrate the premium and commercial segments of the riding mower market.

While the drive to innovate has ramped up, the team at Auburn has also boosted its continuous improvement efforts.  The plant utilizes a Lean Six Sigma methodology that utilizes lean manufacturing to address process flow and wastes issues, and Six Sigma, to focus on variation and design opportunities.  These complementary disciplines help the Auburn plant delivery a very high quality product to the market. 

Recently, the continuous improvement team even partnered with Alabama Power on a week-long event to identify energy saving opportunities that could lead to significant cost savings for the plant.  

"Customers are aware of our continuing efforts to manufacture quality v-twin engines.  And they are particularly pleased with the fact that we can deliver an engine made in the USA, at a facility located in Auburn, Alabama", said Russ Stone, plant manager for Briggs and Stratton.

Briggs and Stratton is a Top 5 employer in the Auburn-Opelika region and has been actively involved in community activities such as Habitat for Humanity, the United Way, and Rebuilding Together, as well as being a long-running sponsor of the Fourth of July fireworks for the City of Auburn.  The Company also has a long standing relationship with Auburn University, working collaboratively on many engineering projects over the years. 

Mayor Bill Ham, Jr. said "Briggs and Stratton is an example of what a great corporate citizen can mean to a community, and they are an important piece of the local workforce and economy. I look forward to their continued success as they evolve to meet the changing needs of their customers through their Auburn plant."

These Briggs and Stratton® engines manufactured in Auburn, Ala., using U.S. and global parts, power several popular riding mower brands including Ariens, Craftsman, Cub Cadet, Husqvarna, John Deere, Simplicity, and Snapper.  To learn more about why engines matter, visit EnginesMatter.com.

Briggs and Stratton Corporation, headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is the world's largest producer of gasoline engines for outdoor power equipment. Its wholly owned subsidiary Briggs and Stratton Power Products Group LLC is North America's number one manufacturer of portable generators and pressure washers, and is a leading designer, manufacturer and marketer of home standby generators, along with lawn and garden and turf care through its Simplicity®, Snapper®, Ferris® and Murray® brands.  Briggs and Stratton products are designed, manufactured, marketed and serviced in over 100 countries on six continents.

Briggs and Stratton Eyes $50 Million Sales Turnover in India

August 25 -- Betting big on the Indian agriculture mechanization market, US-headquartered Briggs and Stratton plans to aggressively expand capacity at its Coimbatore plant, eyeing a sales turnover of $50 million in three years.

Company officials said the New York Stock Exchange-listed firm, the world's largest producer of air-cooled gasoline engines for outdoor power equipment, had sales of $ 2 million in 2011-12 in India.

Briggs and Stratton, which had global revenues of $ 2.1 billion last year, acquired Coimbatore-based Premier Power Products in a $ 3 million deal last year.

The company targeted at small and marginal farmers in India has a range of products, including weeders, tillers, and transplanters.

The company currently has a capacity to manufacture 7,800 units, which would be scaled up to 22,000 by 2015-16, by which time it's targeting annual sales turnover of $ 50 million.

"One of India's great challenges in the next 50 years will be a transformation in the efficiency of its agriculture sector to support the growth of urban development, as the global economy opens up for the Indian entrepreneur", Briggs and Stratton's Managing Director (Europe, the Middle East and African region) Roger Jann told reporters here.

"India will need more food but with significantly less manual labour and more productivity", he said.

Jann said the company is looking at inorganic growth in India as well, eyeing acquisition of small and mid-sized companies making agriculture and construction equipment and generators.

It also hoped to manufacture diesel engines in India within a year.

http://wrd.mydigitalfc.com

Husqvarna's E-Commerce App to Unify Workflow with Business Partners, Factories

HUSQVARNA'S E-COMMERCE APP TO UNIFY WORKFLOW WITH BUSINESS PARTNERS, FACTORIES

www.networkworld.com

August 27 -- Husqvarna Group, the Swedish-based maker of outdoor lawn and garden equipment, is powering up an updated e-commerce network designed to better share business information with tens of thousands of trading partners around the world and facilitate order fulfillment with the company's factories.

"The idea is to bring together all aspects of the process," says Lars-Stefan Holmberg, Husqvarna's global test manager about the business-to-business supply-chain application built with assistance from IBM. Based on IBM WebSphere, it creates an automated workflow from the buyer's order online to its fulfillment in factories. But Holmberg notes that application performance monitoring becomes critical in all this because if the application fails, it could actually disrupt the factory manufacturing of Husqvarna's products, such as lawnmowers, chainsaws and utility vehicles.

Within the space of just an hour, a disruption in workflow around buyer orders could actually mean "factories would stop," he points out.

Among the tools Husqvarna is using to do this monitoring is the BlueStripe FactFinder, which works through a software agent placed on critical servers used in the e-commerce process in order monitor transaction flow and identity glitches in the software or on the network that must be corrected fast.

The new e-commerce application is first being put into production now in the U.S. and Poland, where the company has a factory, and will be rolled out next year across the rest of Husqvarna's global network and server-based links to trading partners.

The Husqvarna Group's global network is sizable, encompassing private lines supporting 10Mbps in the U.S., Shanghai, Germany and Sweden, among other places, to connect four main data centers and 200 other separate data-processing sites, such as warehouses. "If a primary line goes down, we'll always have a back-up," says Holmberg, who cites Verizon as a main carrier.

The WebSphere-based multi-lingual e-commerce system is replacing an older web-order application largely created in-house by Husqvarna. But the server infrastructure, databases and network that's already in place will be used by the new IBM-built e-commerce application. BlueStripe FactFinder, which the company has been using for about a year, can also monitor and identify performance issues associated with internal networks and databases. "It works across all the layers to see how long a transaction takes," Holmberg says. "We want to keep control over our internal network."

The Toro Company Reports Record 2012 Third Quarter Results

•     Third quarter sales increase to $504 million; Year-to-date sales growth nearly 7 percent
•     Net earnings per share for the quarter up 22 percent to a record $0.67
•     Company now expects EPS for the year to be about $2.10, up 14 percent from last year

BLOOMINGTON, Minn.-- Aug. 23 -- The Toro Company today reported net earnings of $40.5 million, or $0.67 per share, on a net sales increase of 0.6 percent to $504.1 million for its fiscal third quarter ended August 3, 2012. In the comparable fiscal 2011 period, the company delivered net earnings of $35.1 million, or $0.55 per share, on net sales of $501 million.

For the first nine months, Toro reported net earnings of $129.3 million, or $2.13 per share, on a net sales increase of 6.8 percent to $1,619.4 million. In the comparable fiscal 2011 period, the company posted net earnings of $112.6 million, or $1.76 per share, on net sales of $1,515.9 million.

Earnings per share figures for all periods reported have been adjusted to reflect the effects of a 2-for-1 stock split effective June 29, 2012.

“In May, we anticipated a slowdown in the second half of our fiscal year due to a more challenging economic environment and the impact the early start to spring had on the business. What we didn’t predict was the worst drought in over 50 years,” said Michael J. Hoffman, Toro’s chairman and chief executive officer. “We were still able to deliver favorable third quarter results in comparison to last year, but the combined impact of economic and weather conditions resulted in additional slowing of retail momentum and an increase in field inventory.”

“Despite the recent drought conditions, there continues to be many positives in our businesses. Our market positions remain strong, benefitting from a strong portfolio of new products. Year-to-date retail continues to be ahead of last year for many of our businesses including golf and micro irrigation. Even walk power mower sales are ahead of last year. And our internal focus on quality, cost and productivity helped deliver improved operating performance.”

“Given the effects of recent weather conditions, the ongoing economic struggles in Europe, and the desire to right size field inventory levels, we are adjusting our fourth quarter guidance as we prepare the company for a successful 2013.”

The company now expects revenue growth for fiscal 2012 to be about 4 to 5 percent and net earnings to be about $2.10 per share, which continues to include the $0.08 negative earnings per share impact for investments related to the Astec and Stone product-line acquisitions.

SEGMENT RESULTS

Professional

Professional segment net sales for the third quarter totaled $361.1 million, up 4.4 percent from the prior year period. Sales of landscape maintenance equipment increased on the strength of new products and continued demand in markets not impacted by drought. Domestic sales of golf equipment and irrigation were up on new products and continued golf industry confidence.

Micro irrigation sales increased domestically as demand continues for better solutions for agricultural irrigation. Recent acquisitions - including Astec Underground, Stone Construction Equipment and Unique Lighting Systems - also contributed to sales. International economic issues and unfavorable currency exchange negatively impacted the sales of all professional businesses. For the first nine months, professional segment net sales were $1,100.9 million, up 7.7 percent from the comparable fiscal 2011 period.

Professional segment earnings for the third quarter totaled $70.5 million, up 9.6 percent from the prior year period. For the first nine months, professional segment earnings were $211.3 million, up 12.5 percent from the comparable fiscal 2011 period.

Residential

Residential segment net sales for the third quarter totaled $135.9 million, down 7.9 percent from the prior year period. As expected, snow blower sales were lower for the quarter due to anticipated soft preseason demand. Shipments of walk power mowers were up slightly for the quarter, while sales of residential riding products were down. Sales of Toro’s new string and hedge trimmers also contributed incrementally to the quarter. For the first nine months, residential segment net sales were $505.4 million, up 5.2 percent from the comparable fiscal 2011 period.

Residential segment earnings for the third quarter totaled $10 million, up 116.6 percent from our fiscal 2011 third quarter, when a pre-tax charge of $4.5 million to account for one-time costs associated with a rework issue affecting a large number of walk power mowers resulted in a decline in earnings. For the first nine months, residential segment earnings were $51.2 million, up 20.3 percent from the comparable fiscal 2011 period.

OPERATING RESULTS

Gross margin for the quarter improved 180 basis points to 35.3 percent due to realized pricing offsetting higher materials costs, a stronger professional/residential mix, and the absence of last year’s walk power mower rework impact. For the first nine months, gross margin was up 40 basis points to 34.6 percent.

Selling, general and administrative (SGandA) expense as a percent of sales increased 60 basis points for the third quarter to 23.2 percent. For the first nine months, SGandA expense improved 50 basis points as a percent of sales to 22.1 percent.

Operating earnings as a percent of sales increased 120 basis points to 12.1 percent for the third quarter, and was up 90 basis points to 12.5 percent for the year to date.

Interest expense for the third quarter was $4.2 million, down 2.2 percent compared to the prior year period. For the first nine months, interest expense totaled $12.8 million, up 1.5 percent from the same period last year.

The effective tax rate for the third quarter was 31.8 percent compared with 32.9 percent in the same period last year. Year to date, the tax rate increased to 33.3 percent from 32.8 percent due to the expiration of the Federal Research and Engineering Tax Credit.

Accounts receivable at the end of the third quarter totaled $197 million, down 1 percent from the prior year period, on a sales increase of nearly 1 percent. Net inventories were $234.8 million, up 1 percent from last year’s third quarter. Trade payables were $124.2 million, down 2 percent compared with last year.

About The Toro Company

The Toro Company is a leading worldwide provider of turf and landscape maintenance equipment, and irrigation solutions, to help customers care for golf courses, sports fields, public green spaces, commercial and residential properties, and agricultural fields.