Gardner Denver Princeton expanding

PRINCETON — Due to the job its associates have been doing for several years, Gardner Denver in Princeton is expanding by 27,000 square feet.

“Since 1998, we have expanded a lot as to the offerings that go out of this establishment, but at the same time, we have done it with smaller and smaller groups,” said Matt Jones, plant manager.

“We have gone through the lean manufacturing process to eliminate waste. By doing that, we have got down to a very lean workforce here, very versatile. We currently have 96 associates between the office and factory.

“It is a very flexible workforce and very hard-working workforce. I am proud of our team and am amazed by the amount of products that we successfully ship year after year. We have a lot of experience and longevity in our workforce with 35-40 percent of the workforce that has been here over 20 years,” he said.

Since the Princeton facility has been able to ship more and more products every year, Gardner Denver management decided to expand the facility to the east.

“This is the first time that Gardner Denver has expanded with new buildings in the United States in the 18 years since Jones has been working in Princeton for Gardner Denver.

“It is a very big vote of confidence in our team to invest that capital. We are going to use that space wisely, as far as putting in new production cells and warehousing uses,” he said.

This project is estimated to be completed by the end of March 2017.

“I couldn’t be happier,” he added. “It is because we are doing a fine job that they are willing to put up this building and the money to invest in us. They trust us because of the performance we have done over the last several years.”

Champion started up in Chicago in 1919 by brothers Fred and George Rayfield. They moved it to Princeton in 1949. It was originally located south of the railroad tracks on North Pleasant Street. It was moved in 1960 to its current location on North Euclid Avenue. It was known as Champion until 1998, when Gardner Denver bought the company from CRLI, a firm in Chicago.

“We were one of their earlier acquisitions and later were the beneficiary of other acquisitions by bringing new products to this facility,” said Jones.

Gardner Denver makes different sizes of air compressors and sells after-market products like oil filters and other spare parts at the Princeton facility. Before Gardner Denver bought Champion, it made the old reciprocating products, a two-piston machine with two stages that can produce pressures up 175 pounds per square inch (PSI).

After Gardner Denver bought the company, Champion became a product brand instead of a company name, he explained. The old product goes for fractional motors like half-, three-quarter, one horse and all the way up to 30 horsepower for the biggest pumps.

These size compressors are for industrial purposes like tire shops, and running air tools.
Those kinds of customers is where the majority of those compressors are used. The smaller compressors are the staple product of the company.

“We joke about it,” said Jones. “You would think everybody has one of these by now, but I’m glad they don’t. They keep coming back for more. We offer the Advantage line of compressors which we stock them and promise to ship within 24 hours of the order’s receipt.”

Another popular size compressor is a 30-gallon horizontal unit with a gas motor to make it mobile for use by farmers and service trucks.

After Gardner Denver took over, they bought several other brands like MAKO and compAir.

“We became the beneficiary of those acquisitions with a L series rotary screw compressor in 2009,” he said.

These were originally made in Germany and went from 10 to 30 horsepower units.

“We took the German product and built it into Air stations. Customers could buy the actual compressor or a compressor on a tank with a dryer,” he explained. “The customer could tailor it to what they wanted to use the compressor for their needs. They could order it online, and for most configurations within a week, we are shipping it out to them.”

The next localization in Princeton happened in 2011 with a rotary vane technology, first made in England, and eventually brought to Princeton for production.

In 2012, high-pressure breathing air units, previously made in Georgia, were brought to the Princeton facility. These units are used by fire departments and scuba divers and create/store 5,000 to 6,000 PSI, and were moved to Princeton along with some smaller units, a compression and vacuum combination system, for high-tech and food processing uses.

In 2013, Princeton also acquired the after-market business of Belliss Morcom, which makes large compressors used in bottle blowing, but Princeton only handles the after-market parts to repair them like filters and valve replacements.

The current Gardner Denver facility in Princeton consists of about 100,000 square feet.
Jones first started working about 23 years ago, building R-15 pumps and moving through the ranks to become a supervisor. He was named interim plant manager in March 2015 and plant manager in June of that year.

The majority of the company’s compressors are shipped by trucks out of Princeton.

“We ship worldwide, but the majority of our business is domestic. We have customers in South America, Canada, Middle East. We have other facilities in Europe that take care of those customers.”

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. L.P. (KKR) bought Gardner Denver in 2013 for $3.74 billion, and the company ceased being publicly-traded.

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