ST. LOUIS - Emerson Motor Technologies announced that it is setting new delivery standards in the motor business with its new on-demand production processes at the company’s Customer Service Center in Southaven, Miss.

Motors produced on Emerson’s new Ready Line, for integral horsepower motors, and FastFlex Line, for fractional horsepower motors, are built on-demand, as each individual customer order is received. Both lines offer turnaround times of two days or less.

“We listened to our customers’ needs and completely changed our business model to meet those needs,” said Ken Poczekaj, president of Emerson Industrial Motors. “Our customers wanted shorter lead-times, fast access to a broader range of motors, and reduced inventory requirements. To meet these challenges, we developed a Lean Enterprise Process, with production based on actual demand rather than a forecast.”

The first integral horsepower motors being produced on the new Ready Line is Emerson’s line of Cooling Tower Duty motors, which includes more than 1,000 models. Before the Ready Line, less than half of these were produced and inventoried as standard items, resulting in lead times of up to eight weeks for many models. With on-demand production, more than 1,000 Cooling Tower Duty motor configurations are available in just days.

“The traditional process in our industry has always been to forecast demand, manufacture to that forecast, and then wait for your customers to order, hoping you guessed right,” said Scott Nieberle, vice president of sales and marketing, Emerson Industrial Motors. “When a customer wanted a motor that wasn’t in stock, the lead time was several weeks at best. But the Ready Line has changed all that. No matter what variation of Cooling Tower Duty motor my customer needs, I know I can usually deliver in a matter of days.”

On the new FastFlex Line, Emerson’s fractional horsepower motors are produced on-demand in as little as 24 hours. Custom nameplates are generated and affixed, rotation can be reversed, and packaging can be customized. The FastFlex Line has a capacity of 400 motors per hour.

For more information, visit www.emersonmotors.com.

Publication date:05/14/2007