Wabash consolidates platform production

Nov. 1, 2009
Wabash National Corporation's wholly owned subsidiary, Transcraft Corporation, a manufacturer of flatbed, dropdeck, and dump trailers, as well as truck bodies, has agreed on the terms of a sale of its Anna IL production facility and will consolidate its operations into its Cadiz KY facility

Wabash National Corporation's wholly owned subsidiary, Transcraft Corporation, a manufacturer of flatbed, dropdeck, and dump trailers, as well as truck bodies, has agreed on the terms of a sale of its Anna IL production facility and will consolidate its operations into its Cadiz KY facility. Platform production at the Anna facility will cease sometime in the first half of 2010, at which time the new production lines at the Cadiz production facility will be fully operational.

“These types of decisions are always difficult to make, especially when it affects associates, but due to the current economic climate, we are faced with the need to further right size our operating footprint and reduce our cost structure. We expect this to be a seamless transition in production due to utilization of excess manufacturing equipment, which should have no impact to our customers,” said Terry Campbell, general manager of Transcraft.

Transcraft plans to sell the facility to a local business owner, Rusty Flamm, the owner of Rusty's Home Center, a lumberyard and home center business with locations in Anna and Vienna IL. Flamm originally approached Transcraft to purchase an unused portion of property in Anna. After this initial inquiry, Transcraft offered to sell the entire facility to Flamm in conjunction with Transcraft's plan to consolidate its production facilities.

Transcraft will consolidate production of all product lines from two production facilities to one in Cadiz, which will also serve as its corporate headquarters. The Cadiz manufacturing plant is a modern, purpose-built facility that currently produces all of Transcraft's aluminum platform and dump product lines.

“This will complete the consolidation process of the company's platform business, which began in October 2007 with the closure of the Mt Sterling KY plant. Similar to our Lafayette Transformation Project completed earlier this year, this consolidation initiative continues the optimization of our production facilities and overhead cost structure that we have been focused on throughout the current economic climate,” said Dick Giromini, Wabash National president and chief executive officer.