Founded in Monroe in 1992 as a joint venture to carve out market share in a new auto-supply manufacturing niche, TWB Co. LLC has grown into an international operation with almost 800 employees, about 280 of them in Monroe, where it is headquartered and operates its largest plant.
The Monroe plant was TWB's only facility for its first 15 years. Then the market for its laser-welded components exploded. Over the next 10 years, it added eight more plants — two in Tennessee, one in Kentucky, four in Mexico and one in Canada.
"That shows you a sense of our growth and our willingness to expand beyond our headquarters and this ZIP code," said company President Ivan Meltzer.
TWB was founded as a joint venture between Columbus, Ohio-based Worthington Industries Inc. (NYSE: WOR) and German-based Thyssenkrupp AG to commercialize new welding processes. In 2013, Thyssenkrupp sold its share to Wuhan Iron and Steel Co. of China, which merged with the Shanghai-based Baosteel Group in 2017 to form China Baowu Steel Group Corp. Ltd.
Worthington Industries, which had revenue of $3.8 billion in the fiscal year of 2019, is a 55 percent owner. Worthington itself had an unusual beginning. It was founded in 1955 with a $600 loan made with a 1952 Oldsmobile as collateral and managed to eke out a profit of $11,000 in its first year.
TWB stands for tailor-welded blanks, which are metal components of a wide variety of sizes and shapes that are made for automobile OEMs, which then stamp them into their final shapes for assembly. Blanks are made from welding together individual sheets of steel of different thicknesses, strengths and coatings.
This welding process allows for flexible part design and ensures the right material is used in the right place. Thicker or higher-strength steel, for example, can go on the front of a piece of frame most likely to bear the brunt of a collision, while other welded pieces on that same part that wouldn't take the head-on blow can be thinner and less rigid, saving on cost as well as providing a way to release energy away from passengers as the parts deform during the collision.
TWB Co. is the leading maker of laser-welded parts for the auto industry, producing about 40 million blanks each year. According to Meltzer, that production represents about half of the North American outsourced market and about 40 percent of the total market, including OEM in-house production. Welded parts it sells are as light as five pounds and as heavy as 105.
In October, TWB Co. was named by General Motors Co. as one of its suppliers of the year. GM recognized 133 of its more than 4,500 suppliers in 15 countries that, according to GM's press release, "have consistently exceeded GM's expectations, created outstanding value or introduced innovations to the company."
"We hold our suppliers to a high bar," said Steve Kiefer, GM's senior vice president of global purchasing and supply chain. "They went above and beyond to deliver the innovations and quality that help us earn customers for life."
In 1995, TWB finished building a 200,000-square-foot manufacturing facility on Nadeau Road in Monroe and added 110,000 square feet just a year later.
In March this year, TWB moved its executive team, sales, finance, HR, new-product design and engineering, 38 employees in all, into 7,600 square feet in the renovated Landmark Building in downtown Monroe, a building built in the 1890s for the Lauer Furniture Co. and which was a J.C. Penney store from the 1930s to the late 1960s. The building sits on the south bank of the River Raisin, and TWB employees have ready access to the river walk the city has built along the river.
Previously, those operations had been housed at the Nadeau Road plant. "But we ran out of space. We had to decide: Do we add on to that facility in bricks and mortar, or do we look for leased space and take the corporate team out of the plant?" said Meltzer. "At the 11th hour, one of our general managers saw an on-line ad for office space available downtown."
Welded steel frames are used in increasing volumes on all vehicles. TWB's most complex part is a body side that incorporates five welded parts. It also makes three-piece structural rails and three-piece floor pans. Meltzer said there are about 70 welded-blank applications in all for passenger cars or light-duty truck vehicles, though no vehicle currently has more than 20 tailor-welded parts. Welded parts include frame rails, inner door liners, pillars, body sides, hinge reinforcements, engine cradles, sunroof reinforcements, decklids and liftgates.
Meltzer said his engineering team works directly with engineering teams at its OEM customers to design and make blanks that can be stamped into component parts for the assembly process.
Meltzer said the company has no current plans to expand. "But we are open and available," he said. TWB likes to locate plants near its customers. For example, the Hermasillo, Mexico, operation strictly supports a Ford factory there. "We have a mindset. Steel is very expensive to transport, so being in close proximity to our customers is part of our growth plan," he said.
Meltzer has had an unusual career path for the president of a large tier one auto supplier. He had been in media relations and marketing, working for the University of Miami, the University of Texas and finally the University of Maryland.
"I got to know the Worthington folks in Baltimore, where they were supporters of the Maryland athletic program," he said. "At the time, all I knew about steel was it was made from iron ore."
He was recruited to Worthington as a salesman. "Instead of dealing with donors who wanted seats for a basketball game, I was dealing with engineers who wanted criteria for door panels," he said.
He was named president of TWB in September 2013 when Thyssenkrupp sold its part of the business to Wuhan.
"Worthington gives folks lots of opportunities to grow and develop. I happened to join a joint venture with a lot of growth opportunities," he said.
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