H & H Sales Company is a truck body and equipment manufacturer, although you might not notice that on initial observation. The Huntertown, Indiana, company fills a niche market so specialized that few companies venture into the arena. Of those that do, H & H, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary, has become a leader in the field.
The company manufactures propane gas delivery vehicles, trailers for delivering bulk compressed gas cylinders, and in-plant gas cylinder handling and storage equipment. They also manufacture their own line of service truck bodies that are designed for customers who install and service propane systems.
But H & H is a hybrid organization. In addition to the manufactured truck body and trailer items that firmly place the company in the category of a niche truck equipment manufacturer, the company manufactures the allied products that are used in the industry they serve, as well as being a distributor of truck body items.
Specialized Sales
Taking an educated risk isn't new to business. That was the fuel that propelled H & H into a niche-market manufacturing company. “The history of the company is intrinsic to understanding how we arrived as a body and trailer builder,” says John Hawkins, chief executive officer of H & H. “The company's roots were primarily in the hardware business and a family operated general store.”
Harlan's Hardware and Dry Goods Market was the original name when Lynn and Louise Harlan opened the company in the early 1940s.
During the 40s and 50s, most homes were heated with wood or coal burning devices that offered some protection against the cold Indiana winters. However, propane gas was starting to emerge as an alternative fuel to replace wood and coal.
“The hardware store was doing well,” Hawkins says. “However, to purchase the equipment that would enable the Harlans to be an propane dealer would have been costly. It was a decision that I'm certain they wrestled with.”
But the Harlans saw an opportunity to be more than a distributor of the product. They saw the need for a trailer device that would streamline the installation of a propane system in the field. That vision ushered in the future for the company to become a truck body equipment manufacturer.
“They recognized that there was a growing need for equipment in the young industry,” says Hawkins. “Large pressure vessel companies were building the tanks and shipping them to distributors for installation. Once the local dealer received the tank, it was his choice on how to transport the tank to its final destination.
“Today's 1,000-gallon tanks are 16 feet in length and about 48 inches in diameter,” says Hawkins. “They weigh approximately 2,500 pounds, and in those days, they were probably just a bit heavier.”
The Seeds of H & H
Theodore Brindle, an industrial equipment designer and a friend of the Harlans, had an idea. Brindle designed a trailer to transport the tank into the field. A car easily pulled the newly designed trailer, which at that time, was an important factor. Towing a trailer with a vehicle was still a relatively new endeavor.
Brindle needed an outlet to distribute his new trailer, and the Harlans had that expertise from the hardware business. The seeds were then planted for what was eventually to become H & H Equipment Company.
The idea was fairly straightforward. “Brindle built a tank carrier that could be trailered behind a car. The carrier, referred to as Model 10 Tank Trailer, could carry a 1,000-gallon tank for field installation or for carrying a tank to another perspective propane dealer,” Hawkins says.
Brindle's design was a success and the H & H Equipment Company was formed to market the Model 10. “The Model 10 is still around today, and it's a big part of our annual sales. It's a product that we don't see going away anytime soon.”
From these humble beginnings, H & H Equipment soon found itself fully entrenched in the body and trailer building business. The company manufactures a complete line of equipment for customers who install and service propane gas systems.
One Stop Gas Accessories
The company manufactures almost everything needed for the propane or compressed-gas dealer, along with many of the items required to provide field service to customers. “The Smooth-Rider bulk tank trailer is a basic design that Brindle developed,” says Hawkins. “Of course, there have been some very modern conveniences added to the trailer.”
The company has also expanded the line to include all styles of service body trucks needed in servicing both the propane- and the compressed-gas retailer or distributor. This includes truck bodies built with swing-down sides and knuckle boom cranes for the delivery and installation of commercial gas systems.
The EF-series of truck bodies are used for the delivery of compressed gas cylinders. They can accommodate everything from forklift cylinders to multiple-cylinders deliveries to heavy industrial gas users.
H & H's Durable Medical Van series of enclosed, cylinder delivery bodies can be designed to service the alternate-site and home-care oxygen marketplace. The bodies offer curbside entry and exit for the driver and a dollied tank. Hawkins adds that H & H's patented in-bed lift platform can also assist the driver in making home deliveries in urban environments.
“We can manufacture anything that is needed by our customers who deliver or distribute gas, whether it be to an oil rig, a rural farm, or to a town home in the middle of a crowded city.”
Manufacturing Fuel
An area of strength for H & H is the manufacturing facility and shop. An aerial view of the H & H manufacturing facility reveals an almost perfect equilateral triangular property, with manufacturing buildings residing on two sides and one side providing a property boundary for a main thoroughfare. The original building was constructed in 1968, starting on one corner of the property nearest the road.
That provided plenty of room for future expansion. The company eventually filled the site with a manufacturing, body installation, and sales complex. The total complex, four main buildings in all, have been expanded numerous times. But it's what's inside that really gets the work done.
Tom Hiser, vice president of manufacturing, will be the first to say that H & H isn't one of the super-shops of truck body manufacturing. He will, however, emphasis that the company runs a well-equipped shop for manufacturing its product line.
“Building 1 is a conglomerate of four additions to the first 2,300-square-foot section originally built in 1968,” says Hiser. “The first 2,300 square feet were used for all aspects of the business. It handles manufacturing, installation, and it had a small office space area that has been expanded, but that we are still using today as our sales and marketing department.”
The first added section, section 1, houses the material-processing department. Section 1 has 2,800 square feet of contiguous space directly next to the office. All of the sawing and metal drilling operations take place in this area, which is also equipped with the flame cutting and plasma cutting tables.
A Do-All band saw has an automatic feed table that is set up to handle material bundles that arrives. The saw has a nesting capacity of 16 inches wide by 14 inches in height. There are also two Kalamazoo band saws that handles smaller cutting jobs.
Section 1 also houses a 5-foot by 10-foot CNC plasma cutter in a corner of section 1. H & H also relies on portable plasma cutters throughout the plant. “The portable cutters can perform work on plate up to 1/4" thick,” says Hiser. “This is perfect because anything thicker would probably be a structural piece and would have been cut from the manufacturing line ticket for the body or trailer construction.
“Section 2 was the second addition to the original building. It added 2,000 square feet and was completed in 1973,” Hiser says. “Although the work process inside section 2 has changed over the years, that area is used as our shipping and receiving department.” In part, that's because H & H's shipping dock was at the back of section 1, and it is now incorporated into the second section.
Hiser says the location of the shipping and receiving department directly in the middle of the manufacturing building doesn't create a problem. “As a matter of fact, from an operations perspective, it's pretty convenient. We can easily check on items that need to be shipped from the office area, and since we don't receive large volumes of material to manufacture our product mix, most incoming materials can be rapidly inventoried and stored right on the manufacturing floor. If there's a problem with a short order or any questions, someone can get there to look everything over without a lot of hassle.”
The next addition to Building 1 came in 1973. “Section 3 is an additional 2,500 square feet that is used as our body manufacturing floor,” says Hiser. “We use a stall-build out system for our bodies and trailers. The manufacturing work in this section can be easily fed by both the material processing that's performed in section 1, and the shear and brake work handled in section 4 — the next contiguous space that was added to Building 1.
The last space addition to Building 1 was completed in 1978. The 2,500 square feet of space is used as the press brake and shear area for the manufacturing operations. Housed inside the space is an Edward 10 Gage TrueCut shear, a Niagara 175-ton press brake, and a Roto Direct Hydra Bender.
The Edward shear will handle a ten-foot plate, which is perfect for H & H. “Most of our work involves forming metal,” says Hiser. “The Niagara press brake, which handles a 12-foot wide plate, is really good for that type of work. The Roto is smaller with an eight-foot bed and can handle some of the more delicate work. We use it specifically for forming smaller boxes and especially doors, which require a lot of accuracy.”
A Piranha 42-ton ironworker adds finishing touches to complement the other machines in the mix by handling any needed notching, punching, and bar shearing.
Storage Cabinets
Building 2 is used for the manufacturing of propane and compressed gas forklift fuel-cylinder storage cabinets. The expansion was completed in 1981, and included a 1,640 square foot area for the cylinder cabinet manufacturing operation, and an additional 760 square feet for a sandblasting facility.
Tooling for this operation is pretty basic. The workhorse for cabinet manufacturing is the welding machine and the manufacturing fixtures needed to make the products. The operation is simplified because all of the raw material needed for the assembly of the cabinets is precut and stored until needed at the point of manufacturing.
Steve Fisher, H & H's shop foreman says, “We shear and form almost every piece of material that comes into this building. That keeps the finished product looking crisp because we use galvanized sheet for all the sheet metal parts, and everything is finished with a powder coat finish.”
In addition to the retail cabinets, H & H also manufactures compressed-gas cylinder caddies (carriers for compressed gas cylinders). “For some applications, a cylinder caddy may have eight or more oxygen/acetylene or other types of compressed gas cylinders on the caddy. If it's being lifted out of a truck body, or the caddy model is one that is used with a forklift, it becomes evident how important the welding quality can be. We have some great welders who are putting our products together, plus we monitor the quality of the equipment closely.”
Hiser adds, “Manufacturing the display cabinets and our line of Kaddy-Karts was a natural outgrowth of manufacturing the propane tank carrier and the service bodies. We manufacture the retail, transport, and bulk storage cabinets that are used for the 20-pound propane cylinders found under gas grills and the propane motor fuel cylinders located on the backs of forklifts.”
Hiser says that the manufacturing of those items is straightforward. However, some new regulations make the manufacturing process a bit more involved than in the past.
For example, the display cabinets used in retail stores are manufactured to be secure. “Everything we place for retail has a tamper-proof padlock hasp, as well as rolled-pin hinges welded onto the frame and door.”
Building 2 also houses the sandblasting department. “We are all aware of the corrosive environment that truck bodies can be exposed to,” Hiser says. “Providing a tough outer finish is important, and a complete sandblasting is the first step in that process.”
Hiser and Fisher are proud of the Farr dust collection system for the sandblasting operation. “It's a brand new addition to our sandblasting facility,” says Hiser. “It completely filters the exhausted air of any impurities from the blasting operation. We try and run the manufacturing facility as close to a green-friendly operation as possible with the available technology. This is one of the improvements that we have made to help do that.”
Building 3 is the finish application area. “This building was added in 1987, and it has a 760 square foot paint booth, and a 5,000-square-foot area for drying and quality control inspections.”
Growing Pains
Any growing business needs more space. In 1996, H & H realized its perfect triangle was running out of room.
“We needed a new body installation shop,” says Rex Yant, vice-president and operations manager. “Fortunately, a piece of land and a 6,000-square-foot building became available directly across the street from our facility.”
“That provided the perfect opportunity to move the body installation department to a large building where we could install the growing number of bodies that we have been successful in marketing,” says Bill Gipson, director of sales and marketing. “Our service body and crane body business has been a very growth oriented aspect of H & H's business over the past several years.
“It's also a product line that we have been adding more options, so that the customer finds it more convenient to purchase all of their transportation supplies from us. We want to be a one-stop supplier to our customers, and we are moving in that direction.”
But the additional space helps in another way.
“This past year we attained several milestones. Not only did we celebrate our 50th year in business, we also became a Ford commercial pool facility,” says Philip Randall, president of H & H.
“That's a big help in providing a quicker build out to our customers of service bodies. We also feel that it shows our committed dedication to serving the propane and compressed-bottled gas dealers that have grown with us during the past 50 years.”
H & H is well fueled for the next fifty years. “Our company philosophy has always been straightforward,” says current CEO Hawkins. “Our philosophy started with Mr Harlan and was nurtured by my father, Lloyd Hawkins, the former chief executive officer of H & H. Lloyd Hawkins believed that if you give customers a little more in quality and service than they expect, they'll stay with you.”
That's what H & H appears to be successful in doing.