Case Study - Seaman Corporation is on the Transformation Fast Track
The textile industry has faced some tough challenges in recent times, including recession, globalization, and rising raw materials and labor costs. Although these sorts of issues can spell trouble, companies that use LeanSigma® proactively to transform themselves into world-class operations can avoid the worst of the problems and flourish. Last year, Seaman Corporation, an industrial fabrics manufacturer, achieved record sales, and maintained gross margins from those sales in light of dramatically increased raw material costs. Had raw materials costs not increased significantly, the company would easily have improved on gross margin, notes Richard Seaman, president and CEO of the company. “This is in large part due to our efforts to increase capability and capacity and reduce costs through LeanSigma,” he adds. “Lean will continue to allow us to take waste out and keep costs down while optimizing our business.”
Seaman is privately owned and was founded in Ohio in 1949. It is currently headquartered in Wooster, Ohio, with factories in Wooster and Bristol, Tennessee. Seaman is not a typical process manufacturer, which we most often associate with the food, beverage, and pharmaceutical industries, but instead makes industrial coated fabrics such as high-performance roofing systems and architectural structures, geomembrane liners, truck tarps, and sign facing. John Crum, vice president of operations for the company, says, “When we put up a roll [of fabric] on a line, we pretty much have to process through that roll. If we stop the process, we’re going to produce bad product, and that’s why we’re considered a continuous operation or a process industry.”
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