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Syn Strand sets partnership example
By Dan McCue
Staff Writer
Federal officials visited the Syn Strand Inc. monofilament plant in Summerville recently to get a firsthand look at a thriving textile plant in South Carolina and to learn how its partnership with the S.C. Manufacturing Extension Partnership helped it grow.
Syn Strand, established in 1987, provides the filament that its parent company, Voith Paper of Heidenheim, Germany, uses for paper machine clothing. Earlier this year, Syn Strand announced a $2.5 million expansion at the Eastport Industrial Park on U.S. Highway 78, including a 14,000-square-foot expansion of its plant and its research and development department.
The officials from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a division of the U.S. Department of Commerce, came to learn of quantifiable measures they might be able to provide other manufacturers on an advisory basis.
“What really intrigues us today is how the manufacturing extension partnership helps make South Carolina companies more competitive,” said Richard F. Kayser, NIST’s executive director.
The Manufacturing Extension Partnership, headquartered in Columbia, is a not-for-profit organization that helps manufacturers solve business and supply chain process problems.
Bart Burford, operations manager at the Syn Strand plant, said the facility’s 78 employees
produce about 6 million pounds of monofilament a year.
Syn Strand faced a host of challenges, including high material and energy costs and a shortage of workers.
Burford called on the extension partnership to learn how to make the plant and its associated research and development lab run as efficiently as possible.
The partnership did a “competitiveness” review of processes and procedures at the plant and then forged it into an action plan based in part on lean-manufacturing principles.
The extension partnership’s consultants also guided Burford through implementation, an effort the manager said “did wonders for morale on every level.”
The challenge now is keeping the momentum going, he said. The extension is creating regional councils within the state where participating companies can lean on each other for support.
“We’ve got seven or eight companies here interested, so we’ll be rolling one of these groups out in the Lowcountry in the very near future,” said Joe Jacobs, a manufacturing specialist with the extension partnership.
Dan McCue is a Business Journal staff writer. E-mail him at dmccue@setcommedia.com.
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