CBJ's Largest Privately Held Companies 2018
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World Class Industries<br />
7<br />
After hitting a soft patch during the downturn in the<br />
farm economy, World Class Industries in Hiawatha is<br />
getting back to the kind of growth that has made it<br />
one of the Corridor’s largest privately held companies.<br />
The Hiawatha-based supply chain specialist provides<br />
contract management and supply chain consolidation<br />
services to leading equipment manufacturers including<br />
Deere & Co., Caterpillar, CNH and Bobcat. It’s been focused on<br />
providing more value and services to existing customers, a strategy<br />
that has allowed it to tap the trend toward manufacturers<br />
building deeper relationships<br />
with fewer suppliers.<br />
“Parts in – assemblies out,”<br />
is a simple shorthand for what<br />
World Class Industries (WCI)<br />
does, President Brent Cobb<br />
said. The company’s business<br />
peaked in 2013, then slowed<br />
as the decline in ag commodity<br />
prices cut deeply into farm<br />
incomes, resulting in fewer<br />
orders from customers like<br />
Deere and CNH. That spurred<br />
the company to pursue other<br />
sectors for growth, including<br />
BRENT COBB<br />
PRESIDENT<br />
the aviation and aerospace<br />
industries.<br />
Mr. Cobb said the decline<br />
hit a bottom in 2016, and<br />
finally showed a rebound effect this year. Employment is up<br />
about 50 full-time equivalent positions from the market bottom<br />
and revenue has risen to $172.2 million.<br />
World Class Industries is building its eighth facility next to<br />
a factory where Deere builds Family Compact Utility Tractors<br />
in Grovetown, Georgia, and is also moving to improved facilities<br />
in Kaiserslautern, Germany, and Des Moines. The new<br />
50,000-square-foot facility in Grovetown, expected to open this<br />
year, will place WCI in an entirely new region, and allow the<br />
company to better service equipment manufacturers located in<br />
the southeast.<br />
“This year, we’re half market-driven and half new projects,”<br />
Mr. Cobb said.<br />
A major undercurrent<br />
in the manufacturing<br />
industry that<br />
drives WCI’s business<br />
is product complexity.<br />
Customer preferences<br />
are driving more complex<br />
assemblies and<br />
systems. As a result,<br />
manufacturers prefer<br />
to have certain components<br />
preassembled<br />
to avoid bogging down<br />
lines at their main assembly<br />
plants.<br />
The rebounding ag<br />
market has also helped<br />
drive demand. Mr.<br />
Cobb said agricultural<br />
THE TEAM<br />
EXECUTIVE TEAM<br />
Brent Cobb, President<br />
Sandy Kaloupek, Vice President<br />
Patrick Patterson, Director of<br />
Operations<br />
BOARD OF DIRECTORS<br />
Brent Cobb<br />
Michael Rosberg<br />
James Schrempf<br />
Kevin Code<br />
SUPPORT TEAM<br />
Bradley & Riley PC<br />
Cedar Rapids Bank & Trust<br />
CliftonLarsonAllen<br />
producers continued<br />
to expand the size of<br />
their operations even during the downturn, and appear to be<br />
buying new equipment because reliability is even more critical<br />
during key harvest and planting seasons due to the acreage at<br />
stake. Deere and Caterpillar have both issued upbeat sales forecasts<br />
for <strong>2018</strong>, which bodes well for WCI.<br />
Adding customer value is always key for the roughly 140<br />
WCI employees and about 25 temporary employees. The company’s<br />
investments in its Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)<br />
purchasing system in particular have helped drive down procurement<br />
prices for clients, as the company can look for advantageous<br />
price breaks and buy certain commodities in bulk.<br />
“So instead of having someone go part by part and deciding<br />
what we want to do, we’re having that be more algorithm-driven,<br />
and having those orders go out automatically and using some of<br />
those same resources,” Mr. Cobb previously told the CBJ.<br />
Although the company’s work is anything but simple, the<br />
work it does makes things easier for equipment manufacturers.<br />
“We like to say, ‘We simplify supply chain,’” Mr. Cobb said.<br />
- Dave DeWitte<br />
“This year, we’re half<br />
market-driven and half<br />
new projects.”<br />
- BRENT COBB<br />
18 CBJ’S LARGEST PRIVATELY HELD COMPANIES <strong>2018</strong>