CPSC, Ariens Recalls Snow Throwers and Power Brushes

April 24, 2014

Recall Summary

Name of product:

Ariens and Sno-Tek Snow Throwers, Ariens and Gravely All-Season Power Brushes

Hazard:

A drive pulley can crack while in use and cause the auger/impeller or brush to continue to rotate after the clutch lever is disengaged. This poses amputation and laceration hazards to consumers.

Consumer Contact:

Ariens Company toll-free at (877) 740-7060 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET Monday through Friday or online at www.ariens.com click on “Recall Information” for more information.

Recall Details

Units

About 5,700

Description

This recall involves Ariens and Sno-Tek brand snow throwers and Ariens and Gravely brand power brushes. Ariens Compact and Compack Track Snow-Thro snow throwers included in the recall are orange and 22- to 24-inches wide. Sno-Tek model snow throwers included in the recall are black and 20- to 28-inches wide.

Power brushes included in the recall are Ariens and Gravely model PB-28 All Season Brush and Ariens 28-inch brush CE. The Ariens power brush was sold in orange and the Gravely in red. The snow throwers and power brushes have the Ariens, Sno-Tek or Gravely brand name printed on the product. For all recalled units, model and serial numbers are printed on a white label affixed to the lower rear of the product, near the wheel. Model and serial numbers included in the recall are:

Ariens Compact and Compact Track Sno-Thro

Models                        Serial Number Range

920013                        124912 - 125271

920014                        142966 - 143728

920021                        003089 - 006233

920022                        000531 - 000712

Ariens Sno-Tek

Models                        Serial Number Range

939401                        090112 - 090623

920402                        143967 - 146057

920403                        126501 - 127351

Ariens PB-28 All Season Brush and Ariens 28 CE Brush

Models                        Serial Number Range

921025                        040600 - 040660

921313                        040163 - 040174

Gravely PB-28 All Season Brush

Models                        Serial Number Range

921026                        040061 - 040079

Units with a black check mark on the model/serial number label are not included in the recall.

Incidents/Injuries

None reported.

Remedy

Consumers should immediately stop using the recalled snow throwers and brushes and contact Ariens Company for a free repair. Consumers should remember to never put their hands into the discharge chute.

Sold at

Home Depot stores and other authorized Ariens dealers nationwide from January 2014 to February 2014 for between $500 and $2,200.

Manufactured in

United States

Importer/Manufacturer

Ariens Company, of Brillion, Wisc.

CPSC and Briggs and Stratton Recall Ariens Compact Snow Blowers

The snow blower's carburetor bowl nut can allow gas to escape

March 6 -- Briggs and Stratton Corporation of Milwaukee, WI, is recalling about 5,400 Ariens Snow-Thro 24 inch snow blowers.

The snow blower's carburetor bowl nut can allow gas to escape from the unit. There have been no reports of incidents or injuries.

The recalled snow blower is 24-inches wide and comes in orange with black. Recalled products have the model number 920014 and serial numbers ranging from 100,000 through 119,039 that can be found on an Ariens-brand label on the lower back panel of the product with the warranty code.

There is also a Briggs and Stratton engine model number 13D1370110 F1 labeled on the side of the engine with the serial number range from 12053000000 through 12071699999.

Engines with a circular black marker dot located on the right side of the engine base, below the electric starter and just above the oil drain plug, have already been inspected and are not part of this recall.

The snow blowers, manufactured in China and the United States, were sold at Ariens dealers and The Home Depot nationwide from August through September 2012 for about $800 to $1000.

Consumers should immediately stop using the product and return it to an authorized Briggs and Stratton dealer for a repair.

Early Spring Brings OPE Sales Boom

Milwaukee -- March 22 -- An early spring across much of the U.S. has boosted outdoor power equipment sales, in some cases leaving dealerships and manufacturers such as Ariens Co. scrambling to keep up.

It's not a bad problem to have, especially after some recent years when the weather and the economy left the industry in the doldrums.

Some dealerships are already reordering lawn and garden equipment after they sold what they thought would be several months of inventory.

A large Ariens dealership in Louisiana sold more than a month's worth of products in one weekend, said company president Dan Ariens.

In early January, Brillion-based Ariens Co. switched from making snow removal equipment to lawn and garden machines - about a month ahead of schedule.

It will keep making lawn and garden gear well into the fall, Dan Ariens said.

That's partly because inventories are tight, and consumers have returned to more normal spending habits after several years of not making equipment purchases.

"They're buying more than they did last year, regardless of the weather," Ariens said.

Briggs and Stratton Co., the world's largest manufacturer of small gasoline engines, says it remains cautiously optimistic about outdoor power equipment sales this spring.

Thursday, Briggs announced layoffs at its Poplar Bluff, Mo., factory that makes engines for the European market and has too much manufacturing capacity for the current level of business.

The company expects global sales to be up 4% to 5% this year, with strengths in developing nations.

An early spring in the United States, while encouraging, doesn't always boost lawn and garden equipment business in the following months, according to Briggs and Stratton.

The good weather can end quickly, said company spokeswoman Laura Timm.

Sales lost from poor weather in April aren't necessarily made up in May, Ariens added.

Privately held Ariens Co. does not release annual sales figures but is considered one of the market-share leaders in two-stage snow throwers and is a smaller player in the lawn and garden equipment business with larger competitors such as Toro and John Deere.

The company's independent dealerships compete with Home Depot and other retail chains, some of which also sell Ariens products - although they are different models.

Increasingly, online shopping has changed the marketplace for outdoor power equipment.

"We try not to have our product on Amazon.com, but sometimes it will show up there," Ariens said.

In some ways the Internet has made it easier for salespeople because they don't have to spend as much time explaining their products.

"About 90% of consumers who walk into our power-equipment dealers have already got all of the information they wanted, gathered from online," Ariens said.

Power equipment dealerships usually don't compete with large retail chains and online businesses based on price. Instead they emphasize service, parts and repairs.

Speedway Sales and Service, a dealership in New Berlin, has been inundated with service work in recent weeks.

"Hopefully, spring doesn't hit a brick wall like winter did," which slowed snow thrower sales, said Speedway owner Rizwan Ahmad.

The nearly snowless winter in some areas hurt landscape contractors who rely on snow plowing for their winter income. Many of them use some of that money to buy commercial lawn equipment in the spring.

"Given their tight cash position, some may not buy as much equipment early in the season," said Tom Cromwell, president of Kohler Engines, a division of Kohler Co.

Hopefully they can make up lost income through a strong lawn-cutting season.

"April and May are really the critical months for this business, so we would love to see continued warm temperatures and enough rain to keep things green and growing," Cromwell said.

www.jsonline.com

Fidelitone Selects ARI’s Datastream (tm) Data-As-A-Service (Daas)

MILWAUKEE, March 20, 2012 --  ARI Network Services, Inc., a leading provider of technology-enabled DaaS and SaaS business solutions that help dealers, distributors and manufacturers increase revenue and reduce costs, announced today that Fidelitone Inc., located in Wauconda, Ill., has licensed DataStream(TM) for a national retailer with 1,800 locations nationwide.

Under the multi-year agreement, ARI will provide Fidelitone with electronic parts catalog data for multiple leading outdoor power manufacturers, including Ariens, Briggs and Stratton Corporation, MTD and Toro.

"We selected ARI and DataStream based on ARI's more than 30 years of experience and expertise in converting disparate manufacturer data into a normalized, easy-to-use format," said Josh Johnson, President of Fidelitone. "Working with ARI will allow us to quickly and cost-effectively deploy accurate parts catalogs into our customer's channel to help them support their service efforts."

"We're excited about the opportunity to stream real-time, enhanced parts data to Fidelitone that will allow their business alliances to look up and order parts," said Roy W. Olivier, President and Chief Executive Officer at ARI. "This relationship aligns perfectly with our core strategy of leveraging our comprehensive library of parts data from more than 125 of the leading manufacturers in the outdoor power, powersports and marine industries to help our customers sell more whole goods and PGandA."

About Fidelitone Inc.

Fidelitone Inc. is an industry leader in 3PL and supply chain performance that delivers value-added solutions for business partners and their clients. A privately-held company headquartered near Chicago, Fidelitone Inc. has more than 28 locations and 500 employees worldwide.

An an innovator within the logistics industry since 1929, expertise includes: Supply Chain Management, Inventory Planning, Warehousing, Fulfillment, Last Mile Delivery, Reverse Logistics, and Parts Logistics. To date, more than 2.5 million shipments are managed by Fidelitone Inc. each year for a variety of customers ranging from Fortune 100 companies to start-up organizations.  For more information on Fidelitone, please visit www.fidelitone.com .

About ARI

ARI Network Services ARIS +6.25% is a leading innovator of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) solutions that serve several vertical markets with a focus on the outdoor power, powersports, marine, RV, and appliance segments. Solutions include eCommerce-enabled websites, lead generation/lead management services, search engine marketing, and electronic catalogs (parts, garments, and accessories). ARI markets its products and services through multiple sales channels and geographic markets and currently serves approximately 18,000 equipment dealers, 125 manufacturers, and 150 distributors worldwide. ARI has customers in more than 100 countries with the primary market being the Americas served by multiple U.S. offices. The company also maintains sales and service operations in the Netherlands serving the EMEA and APAC markets.  For more information on ARI, please visit our Website at www.arinet.com .

Hilliard Corporation Powers Elmira and the World

107-Year-Old Company Makes Parts and Differentials Used In The OPE Industry

There are a few important items one needs to know about the Hilliard Corp., a family-owned manufacturing company located at 100 W. Fourth St. and 1400-1700 College Ave. in Elmira.

The first is there is no longer anyone named Hilliard involved with the 107-year-old company. The founder William Hilliard left the business in 1912 -- seven years after he established the Hilliard Clutch & Machinery Co. in a small brick building near the Erie-Lackawanna railroad tracks on West Fourth Street. The company is now run by the third generation of the van den Blink family.

The patented front-end differentials the company now makes, which transfer power from a vehicle's drive shaft to its wheels, are found on every four-wheel-drive utility and all-terrain vehicle made by the Polaris Company of Minnesota. Hilliard-made differentials are also used on products made by Toro, Ariens, Briggs and Stratton and MTD. Its clutches are used in refrigeration units made by Thermo King, also of Minnesota.

And finally, Hilliard industrial filtration systems, designed to clean the fluids that lubricate factory machinery, are used on the power-generating turbines made by General Electric, Siemens and Dresser-Rand. The filters are also used on the specialized machinery used by natural gas transmission companies.

"Anytime you flick a light switch or turn on the gas, it usually involves our products," said Jon Williams, a Hilliard vice president and director of its Hilco filtration division. "Our stuff goes worldwide; it's shipped to 50 to 60 different countries."

An Array Of Products

Hilliard's product menu, which includes a diverse selection of clutches, brake systems and fluid contamination control systems, is a very long way from the single product the company made in its early days. From 1905 to 1925, Hilliard's bread and butter was a device called a disconnect clutch, used to start and stop production equipment in the early days of the machine tool industry.

But by the mid-1920s, factory machines were built with their own individual motors. They no longer needed Hilliard's clutches to connect them to the centralized motor-and-belt system used to power all of the machinery in a particular factory.

With its lone product now outdated, Hilliard was about to go belly-up until it ventured into a new manufacturing activity -- building oil reclamation systems for General Electric.

The systems removed particles and liquid contaminants from the lubricating fluids that ran through GE's power turbines, allowing the fluids to be reused many times over.

Hilliard engineers eventually began designing their own line of industrial filtration products, which were tested and built in-house by the company's metal fabricators and machinists. The product line now includes a variety of portable and fixed industrial filters, vent mist eliminators which remove oil mist from the air and machine tool coolant recyclers. It's also commonplace to see many Hilliard filtration units hooked up to the machine tools the company uses to make its products.

All Hilliard filtration products are grouped in its Hilco division and account for about half of the company's business. The other half comes from motion control products, which are all designed by the company's engineers and used in a variety of applications.

For example, Hilliard clutches are used to control the large ventilation fans that circulate the air in the Lincoln Tunnel. A reconditioned version of its disconnect clutch is used on the merry-go-round at Eldridge Park.

A Growing Business

The Hilliard Corp. still operates out of its original building on West Fourth Street. But its metal fabrication and machining shops have grown to incorporate the area bordered by West Fourth and West Fifth streets, the Erie-Lackawanna Railroad tracks and North Main Street.

The former Moore business form building, at West Fourth and Magee streets, is where Hilliard industrial clutches are assembled and where its research and development work takes place. The company has also built a new addition, across the parking lot from the original building, where its filter cartridges are manufactured.

In early 2004, Hilliard purchased the former Hardinge property at 1400-1700 College Ave., which now houses its drive-train operations.

"In the 1980s, Polaris came to us for help in designing a clutch," said Jan van den Blink, Hilliard's chairman and CEO. "We did the clutch for them and it was used in their front drive ATV. Now, we provide Polaris with all of their front-end differentials."

In all, said van den Blink, Hilliard now incorporates about 353,000 square feet of manufacturing space, more that 75,000 square feet of office space and about 76,000 square feet of storage space. The company employs about 600 people -- 400 at its main campus and 200 at the drive-train facility on College Avenue.

Close to 80 people have been hired over the past two years, said Executive Vice President Steven Chesebro, and there are between 60 and 65 skilled job classifications, including welders, engineers, shippers and machinists, within the company. But like many other local manufacturers, it's getting harder for the company to find qualified employees.

"So we stay close to Corning Community College and (the Pennsylvania College of Technology) to develop a pipeline," Chesebro said.

Made From Scratch

In an era when many manufacturers assemble components provided by outside suppliers and sell the finished product, Hilliard designs and makes almost all of the components for its products from scratch. The exception is the external housings for the company's clutches, which are cast by an outside vendor but based on Hilliard's designs.

Otherwise, the raw material -- carbon steel, stainless steel and engineered paper for the filter cartridges -- comes into Hilliard's West Fourth Street campus, where it is cut, rolled, bent and welded into its final shapes. The company has recently purchased machinery that allows it to handle parts of its manufacturing processes that were completed by outside companies.

Hilliard is also in the midst of installing a second robotic assembly line at the College Avenue facility that will increase the efficiency and capacity of its Polaris product production. The project's targeted completion date is March.

"Doing as much as we can ourselves allows us to keep our costs down and give us a higher measure of quality control," said van den Blink. "We can design, test and build our own products and there aren't many manufacturers left who can do that."

  www.stargazette.com    

Gasoline Remains King for Snow and Lawn Machines

LOUISVILLE – October 31 - In America's quest for cleaner fuel, at least one major U.S. industry is holding on to the sputter and grime of the internal combustion engine.

From log splitters to snow blowers, the $15 billion outdoor power equipment industry sells tens of millions of oil-powered machines a year to U.S. landscapers, loggers, homeowners and a litany of other buyers.

While lawn mowers get faster, snow blowers cover more ground and handheld products get lighter, their propulsion has barely changed beyond getting more mileage out of gasoline.

This week, at the annual Green Industry and Equipment Expo in Louisville, Kentucky, manufacturers will once again unveil new equipment with some promise of a cleaner, greener future.

"We do anticipate the trend moving in the direction of alternative energy," said Jeff Salamon, director of marketing at MTD Products Inc. "Some customers do like the experience of being unencumbered by exhaust and gasoline."

However, the answers offered will likely be more of the same.

"Gas engines, by and large, are the most efficient way to go," Briggs and Stratton Corp Chief Executive Todd Teske told Reuters in an interview shortly after a press conference to unveil the company's latest engine. Briggs & Stratton sells electric mowers, but only in Australia.

For decades, garden and snow machines were a poster child for harmful emissions. In fact, when auto executives were confronted by regulators for their contributions to pollution, they pointed to the lawn industry as a more offensive culprit.

In the mid-1990s, that began to change as the Environmental Protection Agency began pressuring engine makers with tougher standards.

"These aren't your father's lawn machines," Kris Keiser, president of the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute, said.

At Briggs & Stratton, for example, Teske said emissions have been cut by 75 percent since the mid-1990s thanks to manufacturing upgrades and design improvements. Another 35 percent reduction will come in 2012.

The auto and other industries are under constant pressure to raise fuel economy or tap new technologies because their customers often burn through dozens or more gallons of gasoline each month. As gas prices rise, so does the strain on pocketbooks.

But outdoor equipment users don't face these pressures.

"People who use our products typically use no more than five gallons of gasoline per year," Keiser said. This lessens the likelihood that customers will demand huge advances in fuel economy or solutions that lessen their operating expenses.

Even commercial landscapers here in Louisville do not seem to be budging, despite high weekly fuel costs.

Wang Xiaoguang, general manager of Wenling Leo Garden Machinery Co -- which claims to be the largest exporter of Chinese garden machines -- is learning this lesson first hand.

Standing at his exhibition booth, he talks about Leo's successful business of exporting electric mowers to Europe.

"This customer is different," Wang said of the U.S. market which Leo has yet to crack. "They have different standards."

But some companies, including a handful of start-ups, aren't waiting for customers to change their minds.

Lincoln Jore, a 28-year-old entrepreneur from Ronan, Montana, launched a new "GasLess" outdoor equipment company called Core Outdoor Power on Thursday aimed at commercial landscapers and higher-end homeowners.

His first product, a $249 weed whacker weighing 11 pounds, is powered by an unconventional motor and lithium-ion battery that slips in and out of the machine so it can be charged on a separate dock. It will begin appearing at independent U.S. dealers early next year.

The "market has missed the mark on developing alternative energy products that meet performance expectations," he said.

By 2013, Jore plans to have a broader range of products, including a lawn mower and leaf blower that don't use gas.

But even the most established global players are finding it hard to turn the tide.

Honda Motor Co sells thousands of hybrid snow blowers in Japan annually and is bringing a hybrid model to the United States. This model promises to be the Cadillac of its class, capable of clearing 83 tons of snow in an hour and sweep a city sidewalk in one pass.

But, at $8,000, this machine is twice as expensive as the company's previous top-of-the-line model, and hybrid technology is driving up the cost. Honda's expectations for sales of the Japan-built hybrid are extremely modest, but it wants to test the market before committing to other alternative-energy models.

If Wisconsin-based Ariens Co's experience during last year's tough winter is any indication, there may be hope for Honda. Ariens put on sale an electric snow blower priced 60 percent higher than a conventional model. The company sold out of its limited quantity of electric snow blowers amid heavy snowfall and tight industry capacity.

Stihl Inc, which says it is the No. 1 seller of handheld outdoor power devices, is also branching out. It has a new lineup of chainsaws, leaf blowers, weed whackers and hedge trimmers that are powered by lithium-ion batteries.

The products cost 30 percent more than conventional gas-powered versions and, while initial demand has outstripped expectations, the company said it is too early to break out specific sales results.

Cub Cadet, a brand owned by MTD, has a lithium-ion-powered product line on display similar to those sold by Stihl, but demand so far is only from a "faction" of customers, Salamon said.

Still, Cub Cadet is poised for a shift at some point, even if it is slow going, he noted.

www.reuters.com