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September 17, 1980 FIN – Lamson & Sessions Co., Cleveland, Ohio, has made a number of moves intended to improve capacity utilization and return on invested capital.
Among other things the company is discontinuting its manufacturing operations at its Birmingham, Alabama, fastener plant; has appointed a new Industrial Fastener Division president; and reorganized the division along standard functional lines.
As part of the same program the company announced in June that it was closing its Zimmer Manufacturing Industries subsidiary in Detroit, Michigan, which supplied specialty nuts to the auto industry. Valley-Todeco, Inc., located in Los Angeles, now reports directly to Lamson’s president and chief operating officer rather than to the Industrial Fastener Division.
George J. Grabner, chairman and CEO, and Russel B. Every, president and chief operating officer, said that the plant closings were part of an ongoing program to improve the company’s profitability and cash flow.
“The Industrial Fastener Division” they said, “was the logical place to start since its return on investment was unacceptably low.”
In their second quarter report to shareholders, Grabner and Every said that the company will incur a loss in the third quarter in excess of the second quarter 1980 net loss of $1,794,000, exclusive of the costs incurred to discontinue manufacturing at the Birmingham fastener plant. In the 1979 third quarter Lamson & Sessions earned $2.9 million or 61 cents/share.
The Lamson products previously manufactured at the Birmingham plant will be produced at other Lamson facilities in Cleveland, Ohio, and Chicago, Illinois. However the company’s sales and warehousing operations in Birmingham will continue. About 120 people currently at work and would have to be terminated at the Birmingham plant.
As part of the new program, Roger K. Steel has been appointed president of the Industrial Fastener Division and elected vice president of the parent company. Steel joined the Division in 1977 after serving as president of a fastener division of SPS Technologies, Inc. He will report to Russel Every.
Steel indicated that the Industrial Fastener Division has immediately taken steps to cut costs and improve efficiency. “First,” Steel told FIN, “the division will soon be moving to more economical quarters adjacent to the division’s research and development office.” Second, he indicated that the division has been reorganized along traditional functional lines with significant reductions in personnel.
Lamson & Sessions is a leading supplier to the capital goods market, producing freight car equipment, freight cars, industrial fasteners, aircraft components, truck frames, castings and specialized industrial equipment. ©1980/2012 Fastener Industry News
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