Listening to customers spurs growth for Parker-Hannifin

YOUNGSTOWN — A new way of going after business is leading to more production work at Parker Hannifin Corp.’s local pump plant.

Engineers are spending more time with customers, Parker officials said Wednesday in a tour of its operations for local manufacturing companies.

Bob Dolwick, marketing manager for the company’s gear pump division, said some engineers have been placed in business development and innovation technology teams that work collaboratively with customers to identify their needs and create products to fill them.

Chris Johnson, senior project engineer, said listening to a customer’s needs is crucial.

“We don’t just go in and quote them a product,” he said.

Results from the new effort include two large orders that will be produced by Parker’s pump plant on Intertech Drive.

Starting in January, the plant will produce pumps that will be part of a newly designed fan motor for a small front-end loader used in industrial plants. Dolwick said Parker had no relationship with the customer before but was able to come up with a better designed product than its competitors.

In March, the local plant will begin making pumps for a fan drive for recreational vehicles.

This project was driven by new environmental regulations that will lower tailpipe emissions.

Dolwick said Parker is placing both products in Youngstown because that plant came up with the best plan in competition with other Parker pump plants in North Carolina and Florida.

He credited the United Steelworkers of America union at the Youngstown plant for adopting lean manufacturing techniques that have made the plant efficient. The other two plants are nonunion.

The Intertech Drive plant employs 160, while Parker has 80 at its Logan Avenue foundry and 75 at its Logan Avenue offices.

Cleveland-based Parker took over these local operations in 1999 when it acquired Youngstown-based Commercial Intertech Corp.

Dolwick said Parker, which has $10 billion in annual sales, has grown so large that it changed the structure of its engineering operations last year. One division focuses on new products, while another works with customers on improving existing products.