Construction Equipment Guide
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Wed February 21, 2001 - Southeast Edition
Companies located in the Southeastern United States that depend on Morbark Inc. equipment can now find extensive repair help a little closer to home. Morbark officials recently opened a new, expanded repair facility in Sarasota, FL, with the purpose of providing service to an increasing number of Morbark equipment users. The new facility is celebrating its grand opening month, Jan. 22 - Feb. 22, 2001, with discounts on parts and repairs.
Morbark is one of the leading designers and manufacturers of wood grinding, chipping and processing equipment in the world. Paul Smith, Morbark’s product support manager at the new Sarasota repair center, said an increasing number of the company’s customers are in Florida and the surrounding states.
“We have a pretty large customer base here in Florida. There’s a lot of grinding in Florida all year long and landfill space is at a premium,” Smith said.
Smith added that just south of Central Florida, which stretches from Tampa through Orlando to Daytona Beach, trees and plants grow during all 12 months of the year. That fact, combined with land-clearing due to continuing commercial and residential development, means Florida-based companies use their Morbark equipment year-round, Smith said.
Smith said the new Sarasota facility is basically an upgraded version of the previous Morbark center in Sarasota. He said the previous building essentially served for three years as a “parts depot” for customers. Smith said the Sarasota facility is one of six Morbark centers around the country, but that Sarasota is the only large-scale repair operation outside of Morbark’s headquarters in Winn, MI.
“I came on board with the idea of having a shop-based facility,” Smith said.
The production support manager said it became obvious over the years that the Florida area and the nearby region needed more service from Morbark. He said customers’ needs could not be met entirely by the staff at the old Sarasota facility or the in-field repair personnel. Smith said it would sometimes take weeks to complete in-field repairs and that occasionally repairs had to be done at Morbark’s Michigan headquarters. That meant both delays and expense as the massive wood-shredder tub grinders and wood hogs were transported to another part of the country for service.
Smith said the new Sarasota center, which opened for repairs in December 2000, is capable of handling work on any equipment made by Morbark.
“So far we have mostly repaired tub grinders and wood hogs, but we’ve also done a few chippers and screens. When you look at our equipment population, the majority of it is tub grinders and wood hogs,” he said.
Morbark’s own documents show that tub grinders are among the company’s top-selling products. The grinders, which range from small, pick-up towed models to large, stationary behemoths, are used in a variety of applications. Morbark said the smaller models can be used by tree-trimming companies, golf courses and municipalities while the largest units are generally used at landfills, recycling centers and land-development sites.
Smith said even these latter models can be serviced at the new Sarasota facility. The new repair shop has a total of 11,000 sq. ft. of space with 4,000 sq. ft. of service space. Smith said the center has a staff of seven, including himself, site manager Bruce Ahlers, Ahler’s assistant and four technicians.
The technicians now have access to a full range of tools and shop equipment to tackle any job from a minor repair to a complete machine rebuild, Smith said. Some of the equipment on hand at the Morbark repair center includes a Miller Shop Master welder with a Miller 60 Series wire feed welder, a band saw, a 14-in. chop saw, a drill press, a bench grinder and hydraulic testing equipment. The new shop also maintains precision measuring equipment including anemometers, infrared heat guns, calipers and micrometers.
The new Sarasota facility also features an expanded parts department. Smith said 6,000 sq. ft. of the building’s 11,000 sq. ft. are devoted to the inventory of parts.
“We’ve doubled the capacity for parts inventory capabilities,” Smith said recently.
Smith said he expects Morbark’s Sarasota shop to grow even more over time. He said the new facility is already attracting the attention of the company’s customers throughout the Southeastern United States. He said the facility’s technicians have already repaired equipment from as far away as Tennessee.
Company officials said the expansion of the new Sarasota facility mirrors the company’s own rapid growth in the last 44 years. Morbark Inc. started in a small blacksmith shop in Michigan. In 1957, a sawmill operator named Norval Morey began manufacturing his patented portable pulp wood debarkers. The company now makes a complete series of sawmill equipment, patented hand-fed-fed brush chippers, wood hogs, tub grinders and other wood-harvesting equipment.
Meanwhile, the blacksmith shop has grown to a 1.5-million-sq.-ft. manufacturing complex while the workforce has risen from two employees to more than 700 persons.