Winkle Industries Expands Ohio Facility

Winkle Industries has unveiled its recent expansion to their Ohio operation, which has been designed to support the firm’s growth in the range of products and services.

The 15,000 square-foot expansion of Winkle’s existing 75,000 sq. ft. office and production plant adds warehousing space as well as a detached mobile equipment garage. Over the past several years, Winkle has been diversifying its range of products and services for customers in the steel, recycling and mill-related industries.
The company adds that the expansion also is due to what the company sees as a significant increase in aftermarket support and mobile equipment services to complement the company’s traditional engineering and manufacturing operations.

Joe Schatz, president of Winkle Industries, says the driving force behind the company’s growth has been as a result of customers’ increasing demands for “single-source” relationships for material handling products and services.
“We have taken on contractual obligations to stock larger inventories of assemblies and renewal parts in order to strengthen the ongoing partnerships we have with our customers,” says Schatz. “This expansion is largely dedicated to increase our inventory capacity, while freeing up more space for production requirements. We appreciate and support the need for up-time and parts availability and we will continue to meet our customers’ expectations.”

Winkle built its existing facility in Alliance, Ohio, in 2003 with administrative and engineering offices fronting a multi-bay manufacturing and storage area. With the additions to the rear of the building, more of the original space has been allocated to house work centers for machining, fabrication and assembly.

Schatz reports that production has increased as much as 80 percent at the plant since it was built close to seven years ago. Staffing, meanwhile, has increased more than 60 percent, with much of the growth attributed to increased sales of magnetic and mechanical lifting devices, new products and services for mobile material handling equipment and aftermarket components.

In addition, Winkle has launched a new venture, LiftTech Industrial Services, which specializes in on-site maintenance management, technical support and field repairs for material handling systems.