Western Reserve Controls Inc. (WRC), an industrial electronics manufacturer, was founded by President Jim Barlow and Vice President for Technology Fred Billock in September 1990 as a management buyout from Rockwell International.
The company acquired a low-cost product line in Taiwan and planned to market the line through U.S. and international distributors.
The product line had more than 300 parts, and lead time to get products out of Taiwan was four months. The company didn’t have the capability or the cash to forecast 300 parts accurately over a four-month period and couldn’t afford to stock the shelves hoping it had the right mix. Barlow and Billock soon realized WRC didn’t have the same marketing clout as bigger companies, and the founders took a leap of faith and moved their production facility to Akron.
This created new challenges — such as organizing a plant, finding and training employees, and developing processes to manufacture a quality product — but it didn’t cost any more money. Wages were higher in Akron, but WRC eliminated a layer of margin built in by the Taiwanese contractor, as well as expensive freight and duty fees.
Nine years later, Barlow and Billock changed their business model again. They conducted a ruthlessly honest assessment of the company and found their strengths were engineering and manufacturing and their weakness was marketing.
In response to the assessment, they developed WRCoutsource, a plan to offer WRC’s engineering and manufacturing talents as a package to organizations that either were understaffed or that had no electronic staff. This allowed it to approach a more focused set of customers.
As a result, WRCoutsource has grown from 0 percent of the company’s sales in 2000 to 60 percent of sales in 2004, with 2005 expected to be another banner year.
Akron Mayor Donald L. Plusquellic proclaimed Jan. 5, 2000, as Western Reserve Controls Day and recognized the “unique public-private partnership in forming WRC into a leading manufacturer of industrial controls and in recognition of the growth of the company.” Today, WRC’s 11,000-square-foot factory markets it products across the United States and in 20 countries.
HOW TO REACH: Western Reserve Controls Inc., (330) 733-6662 or www.wrcakron.com
