United Gear has a lot to celebrate
Last week United Gear and Assembly, located in Hudson, celebrated three years without a lost time accident. If you are not in manufacturing, this might be meaningless, but in the manufacturing world this is big news. Not only is it significant to the company but to the employees as well. Various trade publications and websites have been noting this landmark accomplishment of the Hudson company.
It means that the company has gone three years without an incident that would stop or slow production.
“It has been a wild three years,” said Brian Japuntich, Metallurgy and Safety Department. Not only did the company launch a concerted effort to beef up safety, it also saw the orders and employee numbers plummet with the 2008 recession. In 2008, they had 65 employees. Today there are 275 employees on three shifts, weekdays and two shifts on the weekends.
“We are continuing to add more each week,” said United Gear and Assembly president Kevin Frane. “We have enough orders that we could be in the 300 to 311 range soon. The company is presently exploring new opportunities to look for employees. We need people who want to work and have the skill set required.” That has included everything from mechanical engineers to janitors and people with tooling experience.
In honor of the event, the employees gathered Wednesday, Jan. 18 for a pizza party including a presentation by Frane who was recently promoted to president.
“It was very important to us,” said Frane of the safety award. “It was not uncommon to see accidents monthly. We made a concerted effort to change that. In any industry that is important especially in manufacturing. We have been doing more and more regarding safety.”
One of the things the company did was take advantage of voluntary safety audits offered by OSHA.
The effort paid off.
United Gear and Assembly is located in a 100,000-square-foot facility in the original Hudson Industrial Park on the corner of Livingstone and Industrial roads. The company recently rented an additional 45,000 square feet across the street.
“In this type of manufacturing the recession seems to be over,” said Japuntich. “Much of what we make goes into off road equipment.” Agriculture, mining, road building equipment are examples.
United Gear and Assembly, produces parallel axis gears, bevel gears, helical gears, worm gears, hypoid gears, gear shafts, half shafts, splined shafts, splines, pinions and sprockets.
They also offer horizontal lathing, vertical lathing, horizontal milling, vertical milling, hobbing, shaping, hard turning, broaching, gear tooth grinding, nitride heat treating, carburize heat treating and induction hardening.
“What is interesting about our plant is that we start with raw materials and because of our in-house heat treatment, we end up with a finished product for assembly,” said Japuntich. “It saves the customer a lot of time.”
In today’s market, the products are supplied “Just in Time,” which save time and money for both the manufacturer and the customer.
United Gear and Assembly was formerly West Industries. It was owned by Jim and Pat West, who sold it to Roger West in 1998. It is one of four companies that make up United Stars, the parent company. It is privately owned.