Special Products & Mfg., Inc.

SPEC I AL PRODUCTS & MFG. , INC . “He was a tool and die maker,” recounts Grand- Lienard. “He got an opportunity to go out on his own and he started the business in our two-car garage as a metal fabricator with some light stamping.” Over the years, the privately held, family-owned company expanded its footprint – from the garage to a 5,000-sq.-ft. building in Dallas, then a 15,000-sq.-ft. facility in Garland, then, in 1982 a move to Rockwall, Texas, where in 2006, SPM built a new, state-of-the-art, 140,000-sq.-ft. facility on ten acres in Rockwall Technology Park. In 2020, the company will be opening a new facility in Austin, Texas with 30,000 square feet of light fabrication, inventory, and logistics. Grand-Lienard stresses that SPM is in a very competitive industry, with metal fabrication, over the years, having become a commodity that many can operate. “Throw four walls up, put in a couple of machines, then you could produce metal parts,” he says. “And the competition is not just down the street anymore. We face global competition: China, Korea, Mexico and the guy around the block.” But he also believes that his company remains successful (it grew from $2.2 million in annual sales in 1987, to an estimated $40 million, this year) due to two main factors. The first is a continual focus on advances in production technology and a strong internal culture. “We’re heavily automated; a lot of robotics, a lot of automation,” he reveals. “And our ability to buy and integrate automation quickly is paramount in our industry.” “We also want to be the employer of choice by empowering our team to continuously improve safety, processes and material utilization.” But just as important, if not more so, was a radical change in the company’s culture that began about ten years ago. “We began to shift our culture from a very command and control culture to a more employee-engaged and empowered culture,” he states. Management had always invested in leading-edge equipment, but it often failed to recognize the human