News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The White County Hormann Plant is in phase one of its operations.
About 40 employees are working at the facility to build inventory up of two garage door products. President Camron Rudd said the two products should be available this September.
“We have a sandwich product, which is an inch and a half EPS, steel front, steel back sandwich composite door,” Rudd said. “And then, what we call in the industry a pan door, which is an uninsulated or insulated option
The two product lines make up about 60 percent of what the location will produce. Rudd said the future focus is to bring more product lines to the plant.
“As we get all of our logistical challenges figured out, as far as how to service our sale centers and customers from the Sparta facility. then we will start bringing more and more products on line and the months and the probably year or so to come.”
Hormann plans to open more sale centers in the Southeast with the product being supplied from the White County plant. Rudd said he estimates the plant will be fully functional in late 2021.
“Our biggest challenge has been equipment installation,” Rudd said. “Many of the pieces of equipment are coming from off shore, specifically Italy and Germany. It has been a challenge to get people in from those countries to do work, so we have had to do a lot the installation remotely using our own internal staff.”
Rudd said some pieces of technology can not be installed without the appropriate technicians causing short falls for phased 1. Eventually, the Sparta products will be sold worldwide. Once operations are at max capacity, about 200 people will work at the Sparta location.
