 Superior Tire emphasises technology. |
Superior Tire & Rubber Corp is expanding its facilities as the business observes its 50th anniversary. The LeMeur family privately controls the business.
The company supplies many of the world's largest original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in the materials handling, road construction, road/floor maintenance, agriculture and infrastructure markets and also serves the aftermarket with materials handling and agricultural specialty tyres.
Superior's main plant in Warren occupies 110,000 sqft. (10,219 sqm) and a 17,000 sqft. (1,579 sqm) technical centre housing a testing and laboratory area and the company's accounting, engineering, sales and marketing functions.
Expansion is occurring in two Warren County locations.
Superior is constructing a 27,000 sqft. (2508 sqm) facility to house the most advanced polyurethane molding lines and expects to have the additional molding capacity online in late June.
In addition, Superior is working on another facility in Warren County that will provide an additional 33,000 sqft. (3,066 sqm) of manufacturing space, potentially for steel fabricating. Superior may complete that project in late 2014 or 2015.
Superior's product development efforts create about 200 new products per year incorporating both high performance polyurethane and rubber compounds, some of which are based on new patents.
Superior's materials handling product line includes load wheels, press-on wheels, casters, skid-steer tyres and CushoGuard-brand polyurethane load protection sleeves. The sleeves cushion impacts and can eliminate scratching, chipping, marring and scuffing on both load and forks.
The newest products include a series of Easy Adjustable Casters, pre-assembled components and more advanced tyre compounds.
Superior designers created the family of casters for class II and III forklift trucks around their philosophy of decreasing maintenance downtime and difficulty. Properly adjusting the casters leads to greater truck stability, longer component wear-life and optimum truck performance.
Pre-assembled components, including rear load wheel link assemblies and drive tyre press-fit assemblies, provide the convenience of having a fully assembled component rather than spending time sourcing dozens of components and assembly steps.
Superior is conducting trials of its most recent tyre compound, branded as the Cushothane Ultra-ES, with leading OEMs. The compound was engineered to tackle extremely long runs and heavy loads.
Superior Tire was founded in 1964 as a tyre retailer, re-capper and molder of solid industrial rubber tyres. Henri LeMeur Sr purchased the company in 1974 and refocused the company's strategy on manufacturing specialty industrial tyres. An early success involved the design of tyres for floor scrubbers and sweepers where wet traction, chemical resistance and high load-carry capability necessitated the need for specialty compounds.
Henri LeMeur Jr became president and CEO in 1994 and credits the company's success to its work force. "Every product challenge I have thrown at our team has succeeded in time," LeMeur says.
Superior Tire grew through the outsourcing era from 1994 through 2004, when most competitors and many customers moved production to China and the "China price" became everything, LeMeur notes. During this period, "we lost our number one customer four different times (including) one situation when we even 'won' a customer's reverse auction". Since then, Superior's sales have more than doubled, and the company has recruited young professionals committed to the rubber and polyurethane industry.
The size of the engineering and technical service team, headed by Arun Kumar, has doubled over two years. As a result, Superior has introduced innovative products and won business on more OEM platforms in materials handling and other markets. Also, the company expanded its quality team and created additional customer service representative positions.
Superior has customers in the US, Canada, Mexico and numerous European countries.
Superior Tire & Rubber has about 270 employees in its Pennsylvania facilities and has regional sales staff in Charlotte, North Carolina; Los Angeles; and Chicago. Some employees own shares in the company.
During 2014, Superior Tire has refreshed its branding and marketing efforts with a new logo, corporate branding theme, a completely new website that includes a web store section and new marketing materials.
In about five months, Superior Tire will hold an open house including facility tours as part of the observance of its 50th anniversary.