Wright Lawn Mowers Survive Great Recession and Cut a Path to Commercial Success

April 6 -- I get a million pitches to write about professional services companies, health firms, staffing services and consultants. But a lawn mower manufacturer? In Washington’s back yard?

It conjured up romantic images of Henry Ford-like industrialists strutting through their factories, building fortunes, commanding legions of blue-collar workers.

Then I interviewed William Wright, a 58-year-old tinkerer and inventor who had to raise millions, mortgage his home, fire dozens of workers, iron out a million mechanical problems and fight off a financial crisis to give birth to his vision of the perfect — and profitable — lawn mower.

The Frederick, Md., manufacturer’s sales dropped by more than a third in three months and stayed there for a year during the Great Recession. The company went into the red. Cash was drying up. Banks were not lending.

Chief executive Wright went into cost-cutting mode, slashing head count from 125 employees to 75. The layoffs left him with a lean, highly motivated workforce, “the best of the best,” said the former Volvo mechanic.

Thanks to those moves and to a resurgent economy, Wright Manufacturing came out the other end of the Great Recession a leaner, stronger company. It expects to ring up more than $40 million in sales this year and produce enough profit to send its 22 investors a monthly dividend.

Nearly 85 percent of its 170 employees are factory workers, turning out between 600 and 800 lawn mowers a month. The machines sell for $7,000 to $11,000 apiece, depending on size and horsepower. Most Wright lawn mowers are known by a distinctive perch that allows the operator to ride standing at the back.

The company’s lawn mowers are sold to dealers across the United States and Europe. Wright’s best markets are Massachusetts, Florida, Chicago and Kansas City. Wright also makes mowers sold under the John Deere brand.

Wright would not provide the scope of his profit except to say, “We make a serious margin.”

He said the company’s edge is its ability to keep warranty claims to about 1 percent of revenue. The industry average is 2 percent.

“We went through skin, muscle and bone and were left with an amazing team. We had a lot of brain power. We got rid of costly traditions. We gave people permission to improve their work.”

The company encouraged workers to share training tips, including more efficient ways to perform the same tasks. Basic things such as new ways to store tools became part of the company’s “goof proofing” campaign to reduce mistakes.

“If you wait for management, it may take years to get done,” said Wright. “But the workers come up with more, smaller ideas, more frequently and get [them] implemented faster.”

During the recession, Wright’s managers became fanatics about hiring, looking for highly motivated employees.

“We don’t take weak employees,” the founder said.

The company increased its hiring standards. Prospective hires are interviewed by three Wright employees, who must unanimously agree to make the hire. Prospective employees must also tour the plant and meet people so they get a taste of the culture.

“We are careful,” Wright said. “We are extremely selective. We got paranoid about hiring good people. We hire for attitude and aptitude, not prior experience or credentials. We like to train for the jobs in-house.”

Take the all-important welders. Each lawn mower has hundreds of parts that must be skillfully welded so the machine holds together. Because of the skill and training involved, welders tend to be higher paid than other factory employees, earning between $14 and $18 per hour, depending on their skill and productivity.

But Wright didn’t necessarily want longtime, skilled welders. He wanted young, inexperienced — less expensive — laborers whom he could mold into Wright Manufacturing employees.

“We would rather have somebody who worked at McDonald’s and has good character and work ethic and teach them how to weld,” he said. So Wright instituted a welding school to train workers from scratch.

Wright grew up north of New York City, and after a year of studying engineering at Clarkson College, he quit to go to a small Florida college.

He started off his professional life three decades ago repairing Volvos in the Baltimore-Washington area. In his spare time, he and his wife began a lawn mowing business to make extra cash.

Wright loves tinkering with gadgets, and around 1983 he decided to build an all-metal grass catcher to attach to his lawn mower. He then approached a local lawn mower dealer about selling his contraption. The dealer sold 200 Wright-made grass catchers the first summer.

Making such a small number of the accessories was not yielding enough profit, so Wright rented a 1,200-square-foot space in Gaithersburg, bought a welding machine and scaled up his grass catcher manufacturing.

“We could make them cheaper if we could make more of them,” he said.

He recruited 400 dealers across the United States, charging $300 each for customized grass catchers that fit more than a dozen different mowers.

He also designed and built a “sulky,” which allowed the person operating the lawn mower to ride standing at the back.

As the business was getting off the ground, he could fall back on other revenue streams. Wright’s lawn mowing enterprise had grown into a $1 million-a-year operation, with 12 trucks, 500 customers — mostly Potomac homeowners — and netting him a $200,000 a year living. He had learned computer programming during his one-year stint at Clarkson, so he put that to work in 1983 by writing software that helped keep track of his mowing service.

As his manufacturing business grew, he decided he wanted to build not just grass catchers but the entire mower. He sold the software business for $125,000 in 1993. The same year, he sold the lawn mowing business for a six-figure profit.

He still needed more money. He mortgaged his multimillion-dollar home, twice. He contacted friends and others through word of mouth, raising between $1.5 million and $2 million. He took out bank loans and maxed out his credit cards.

“When you are an entrepreneur, you get creative and desperate at the same time,” Wright said.

The first year he made mowers, he lost $18,000, and the business grew in fits and starts after that, turning a profit one year, then losing money. Wright struggled to control its warranty costs and figure out a price that allowed both the company and its dealers to turn a profit.

Over the past three years, though, Wright Manufacturing has hit its stride, turning its 20 investors into happy campers.

“You work on every angle until one day, you sort of come out of the woods,” said Wright, who owns 57 percent of the company. “Running a business means eliminating as many problems as you can. You always have problems. But when enough parts start to work well . . . the profits start rolling in.”

Thomas Heath       http://www.washingtonpost.com/business    

Here Comes El Nino, Good News for U.S. Weather Woes

WASHINGTON – March 6 -- Relief may be on the way for a weather-weary United States with the predicted warming of the central Pacific Ocean brewing this year that will likely change weather worldwide. But it won't be for the better everywhere.

The warming, called an El Nino, is expected to lead to fewer Atlantic hurricanes and more rain next winter for drought-stricken California and southern states, and even a milder winter for the nation's frigid northern tier next year, meteorologists say.

While it could be good news to lessen the southwestern U.S. drought and shrink heating bills next winter in the far north, "worldwide it can be quite a different story," said North Carolina State University atmospheric sciences professor Ken Kunkel. "Some areas benefit. Some don't."

Globally, it can mean an even hotter year coming up and billions of dollars in losses for food crops.

The National Oceanic Atmospheric and Administration issued an official El Nino watch Thursday. An El Nino is a warming of the central Pacific once every few years, from a combination of wind and waves in the tropics. It shakes up climate around the world, changing rain and temperature patterns.

Mike Halpert, acting director of NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, says the El Nino warming should develop by this summer, but that there are no guarantees. Although early signs are appearing already a few hundred feet below the ocean surface, meteorologists say an El Nino started to brew in 2012 and then shut down suddenly and unexpectedly.

The flip side of El Nino is called a La Nina, which has a general cooling effect. It has been much more frequent than El Ninos lately, with five La Ninas and two small-to-moderate El Ninos in the past nine years. The last big El Nino was 1997-1998. Neither has appeared since mid-2012. El Ninos are usually strongest from December to April.

Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, who wasn't part of NOAA's forecast, agreed that an El Nino is brewing.

"This could be a substantial event and I think we're due," Trenberth said. "And I think it could have major consequences."

Halpert said it is too early to say how strong this El Nino will be. The last four have been weak or moderate and those have fewer effects on weather.

Scientific studies have tied El Ninos to farming and fishing problems and to upticks in insect-born disease, such as malaria. Commodity traders even track El Nino cycles. A study by Texas A&M University economics professor Bruce McCarl found the last big El Nino of 1997-1998 cost about $3 billion in agricultural damage.

Trenberth said this El Nino may even push the globe out of a decade-long slowdown in temperature increase, "so suddenly global warming kicks into a whole new level."

Kunkel said if this El Nino is a strong one, global temperatures, probably in 2015, could "be in near record breaking territory."

Halpert, however, says El Ninos can be beneficial, and that the one being forecast is "a perfect case."

After years of dryness and low reservoirs, an El Nino's wet weather would be welcome in places like California, Halpert said.

"If they get too much rain, I think they'd rather have that situation rather than another year of drought," Halpert said. "Sometimes you have to pick your poison."

Australia and South Africa should be dry while parts of South America become dry and parts become wet in an El Nino. Peru suffers the most, getting floods and poorer fishing.

The climate event got the name El Nino, meaning the boy in Spanish, when it was first noticed off the coast of Peru and Ecuador around Christmas time and was named after Christ child, according to Trenberth.

Propane Distributors Seek To Boost Demand with Lawn Mowers

September 19 -- The propane industry has set its sights on that symbol of American middle-class achievement: the lawn mower.

Blame it in part on the natural-gas drilling boom, which has left distributors scrambling to find new ways to increase demand for propane.

A liquid cousin to natural gas, propane is best known for home heating and backyard barbecues, although it is also used in the chemical industry and as a fuel in farm equipment. It is easier to transport in liquid form than natural gas, so it generally served areas disconnected from natural-gas pipelines.

But when domestic natural-gas production took off late last decade as companies found ways to economically tap into vast shale formations, more pipelines were built and the steady decline in propane's domestic market share accelerated.

To protect their turf, propane distributors focused first on improving the performance of farm equipment to keep agricultural customers happy. Now, the industry sees propane's role as a fuel for small engines as a growth area, says Roy Willis, head of the Propane Education and Research Council.

By promoting the benefits of propane lawn mowers—which have lower emissions, are cheaper to run and last longer—the group is betting it can grow to a 3% share of all commercial mowers sold in the U.S. by 2016 from 1% now. That would goose propane consumption by the machines to 23.8 million gallons by 2016 from about 7.9 million gallons this year.

Though propane mowers can cost more than comparable gasoline mowers (about 10% more in some cases), they can last two to three years longer because they burn so much cleaner, says Ivan Giraldo, president of landscape-maintenance firm CleanScapes Inc., which has used propane mowers in San Antonio and Austin, Texas, since 2006.

How much the push into lawn mowers will help propane retailers remains to be seen. The market for propane in mowers is much smaller than the residential market, so the industry has a lot of ground to cover. In addition, the U.S. has become a net exporter of propane in recent years—supplying countries such as Mexico, Brazil, Ecuador and Chile with propane for residential heating and cooking. That is starting to push wholesale prices up from their historically low levels of recent years, threatening propane retailers' margins.

Exports grew to about 8.7 million barrels in July 2013 from 2.7 million in July 2010, according to data provider IHS Waterborne Energy. And big exporters such as Enterprise Products Partners LP and Targa Resources Partners LP are expanding capacity in anticipation of even more growth.

Rusty Braziel, an energy-supply analyst with RBN Energy LLC, says that isn't sitting well with the propane distributors he spoke with this summer. "They were a pretty depressed bunch by the time I was through."

Tom Fowler             www.online.wsj.com    

Power Regeneration System Generates Power Instead of Heat

Case study: Briggs & Stratton’s first-of-its-kind power regeneration system cuts costs in reliability lab. Global small engine maker captures wasted energy, expects to save $50,000 per year, and modernizes data collection and control system.

October 8 -- Lawn mower and small engine parts manufacturer Briggs & Stratton was spending over $1 million in fuel costs alone to run engine endurance tests in its labs. To cut costs and realize the power wasted in heat from existing dynamometers, Briggs & Stratton worked with an automation vendor to develop a new power regeneration system. The new system helped Briggs & Stratton win two honors for sustainability, and the 556,000 kWh expected output could power 48 homes each year.

Daily, around the clock, the buzz of small engines fills the reliability laboratory inside Briggs & Stratton’s main plant near Milwaukee, Wis. Employees monitor the prototype and modified engines to meet the exacting standards set by one of the largest producers of lawn mowers, snowblowers, and other outdoor power equipment.

“Our task is to flush out failures in the lab, and prove the durability and safety of the design before it’s sold to a customer,” explained Ray Matuszak, test engineering manager, Briggs & Stratton. “Continuous, consistent, and accurate measurement of test time and operating characteristics are vital to establishing the engine’s long-term reliability.”

In February 2011, Matuszak and his team began gleaning this critical information from fully automated test stands that also provide a first-of-its-kind benefit—regenerating power for the plant. These innovative technologies helped Briggs & Stratton’s reliability lab become one of the most advanced in the industry, and quickly earned the company awards for environmental sustainability.

But overcoming the many challenges associated with the project took four years of effort and ingenuity.

The reliability lab’s endless endurance tests are costly. Briggs & Stratton was spending nearly $1 million in fuel cost alone to run engine endurance tests in the labs.

Briggs & Stratton engineers realized they could lower operating costs if they could capture power that’s wasted in heat from the existing dynamometers. Their goal was to harness that energy and convert it into electricity for the plant’s consumption.

The problem was this type of power regeneration system didn’t exist. And the cost of creating it, engineers worried, might be too high to justify the investment.

Besides, the reliability lab needed other advanced technology to meet its core goals. First on the list: an automated supervisory control and data acquisition system with customized visualization and historical tracking capabilities.

At the time, clipboard-carrying technicians manually monitored each engine during its life span in the lab, recording load, various operating temperatures and other key metrics. This labor-intensive, information-gathering system was prone to inconsistencies and human error.

As engineers from both companies began brainstorming the custom requirements for the project, they also focused on ways to achieve the best return on investment. One potential opportunity: a “Focus on Energy” grant from Wisconsin, which—like many states—had begun offering incentives to boost the use of clean, renewable power.

The engineers worked to compete for the state funding in 2008 and again in 2009. On their third try, they won a grant to pay half the cost of a pilot project.

The combined engineering team spent the next several months collaborating closely on keeping the captured electricity within the plant while maintaining a smooth and safe connection with the external power grid. Automation engineers worked with the local utility company, We Energies, to accommodate both power flows.

On the data-acquisition side, the biggest hurdle was establishing what information needed to be captured by the automated system, and what controls and safeguards would be included in the system. Then there were the discussions about control details, how engine operating characteristics should be displayed, along with understandable terms and data system custom features.

“For technicians accustomed to recording information on a clipboard, an interactive touchscreen presented a major mind shift,” said Richard Feustel, corporate energy services manager, Briggs & Stratton.

The automation vendor “walked a roomful of us through hours of whiteboarding, explaining options on how to enter, acquire, and share data. Everybody who would be affected by the conversion had an opportunity to contribute to the planning, so we got exactly what we wanted. That also made the later transition in the lab easier, because our folks had been part of the design process,” Feustel said.

In February 2011, the pilot program went online with 12 test stands designed for use with various engine types and horsepower limits. Each test stand is run by an alternating current (ac) motor using a variable frequency drive (VFD). The drives run at fixed speeds to start a gasoline engine. Once the gasoline engine is up to speed, the motor and drive load the engine to a torque level based on the engine horsepower rating. Alternatively, the system is capable of controlling complex duty cycles with varying loads and speeds as defined by the operator.

The regeneration system captures the power output of the gasoline engines and creates electricity with that power. All 12 ac motors and drives convert to a common direct current (dc) bus supply. The dc bus supply then converts the dc to ac, and synchronizes to the ac line, where all the power is directed back to the internal grid—reducing the need for electricity from the outside utility.

Six local enclosures provide two functions: local control of the drives for setup and up to six thermocouples per engine. Data used to monitor engine health and diagnose potential failures—including test run-time, multiple temperatures, alternator voltage, and engine speed and torque—goes to a programmable automation controller (PAC) via an Ethernet network.

With human-machine interface software, engineers and technicians can view critical, real-time information on engine load, speed, temperature, test-run time, oil-use rates, and other critical variables on any industrial computer in the lab. Historian software automatically captures that real-time data for analysis using Microsoft Excel, and technicians can identify any trending for use by reliability engineers.

Briggs & Stratton also invested in industrial energy management software, a comprehensive Web-based application that logs and analyzes energy-use data within one plant or from multiple, related sites. The energy management team at Briggs & Stratton uses the software to gather information about electrical, gas, and steam usage from power monitoring devices installed around the Milwaukee campus. Energy managers can access that information in the industrial energy management software and create reports about energy-use trends to share with the various departments in the plant. This information helps identify top-priority power issues.

It made perfect sense to invest the energy management software “so we could benchmark our power use and track our savings,” Feustel said. “Before, the only information we had about our energy use came in our electrical bills.”

Results

Briggs & Stratton engines are tested and regenerate electricity for use within the plant via regeneration stations. Courtesy: Rockwell AutomationBriggs & Stratton quickly achieved a range of benefits, some expected and others that pleasantly surprised the company.

The reliability lab is on track to generate as much as 556,000 kWh annually—equal to the amount needed to power 48 homes every year. That captured electricity is fed back to the plant’s internal grid, which the company hopes will save an estimated $50,000 a year.

Another environmental plus: the electricity generated by the 12 test stands alone reduces the plant’s greenhouse gases by 442 tons annually.

The regeneration project was a major reason Briggs & Stratton received two prestigious honors for sustainability in 2011. The Environmental Innovation Award from the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, and the Galaxy Star of Energy Efficiency Award from the Alliance to Save Energy were presented in Washington, D.C., to Briggs & Stratton’s Chairman, President and CEO Todd Teske by Wisconsin U.S. Senator Herb Kohl.

In accepting the Environmental Innovation Award, Briggs & Stratton thanked its automation vendor for its role in creating the regeneration system.

Matuszak acknowledges the importance of the regeneration system itself, but contends the new automated data-acquisition and control capabilities are equally valuable.

“Certainly without the payback derived from power regeneration, this project would not have gone forward,” Matuszak said. “But automated data acquisition and control has a lot of positive effects on the bottom line. The most important benefit is improved test fidelity—we have streamlined data collection versus the crude traditional methods. We can tell instantly when an engine is not operating normally or when a test is set up incorrectly. The new system also increases productivity and efficiency by freeing technicians for other tasks.” Feustel and Matuszak agreed they’d like to eventually expand the project, but first they must harvest all the insights from the initial phase.

“The variety and volume of information is outstanding,” Feustel said. “We’re still learning how to best utilize the data we’re getting from the 12 test stands.” However, Briggs & Stratton is quickly expanding its use of industrial energy management software, and its ability to track, analyze, and visualize energy-use data from multiple locations. The company has installed a dozen power monitors in its Milwaukee facility that feed information into the software. Soon, Briggs & Stratton plans to put five monitors in its plant in Murray, Ky., and within five years expects to place them in the company’s 10 other manufacturing facilities worldwide.

“With the Web-based system, we can view other plants’ metrics and track our energy usage and spending across the enterprise,” Feustel explained. “Adding onto this global dashboard...is so easy, it simplifies the process of becoming even more sustainable.”

Return on investment details

Project cost: $216,800

Project savings: $48,031/year (533,678 kWh regenerated from expected engine testing at $0.088/kWh)

Simple payback: 4.5 yr (2.0 years with FoE Grant)

Focus on Energy Grant: $118,600

Completion date: 02/28/2011

Award: The building received the Wisconsin Green Building Alliance Sustainability and Energy Efficiency (SE2) Award Special Citation.

www.plantengineering.com