Stern Rubber expands in Minnesota

STAPLES, Minn.—Stern Rubber Co. isn't afraid to try new things, and it is paying off with more business.

The firm recently celebrated the grand opening of a new 12,000-sq.-ft. addition to its manufacturing facility in Staples, increasing the size of the building to 50,000 square feet with 65 employees.

It also has added three new pieces of equipment since the addition opened—a Normec splicing press, a fourth Desma Injection Press and 3.5 inch NRM Vacuum Extruder.

In total, President Bob Jackson said the firm has spent about $1.45 million on the new expansion and the additional equipment.

“We were drastically out of room,” Jackson said. “We needed to buy some more injection presses, and we didn't have anywhere to put them. We also needed more warehouse space because we were completely out of warehouse room.”

The company used the expansion as an opportunity to improve its process flow. Jackson said the firm's deflashing and trimming process had been in the center of the building as opposed to the end because of the way the plant has evolved. The executive estimates the main building has been expanded six times since it was established in 1973.

Stern Rubber operates three facilities—its main building and an extruding plant both located on the same campus in Staples. The third facility is about an hour east in Aiken, Minn. That building exclusively focuses on gate valves—one of the firm's largest sources of business. The three facilities combine to employ about 85.

The company operates six injection and 27 compression presses at its main facility, with the extrusion operation consisting of two lines. It also operates three compression presses in Aiken.

Stern Rubber uses almost every kind of rubber imaginable—including natural rubber, EPDM, SBR, molded silicone and fluoroelastomers—using compression, transfer and injection molding as well as some extrusion. Part of the reason for the growth is the company's willingness to try almost anything.

“If we can mold it, we'll quote it and take it on,” Jackson said.

When a customer was looking for a company to try its hand in extrusion, Stern Rubber wasn't shy. In fact, the customer wanted a rubber molder who didn't have any extrusion experience and was willing to support a rubber molding shop to get the results it needed.

Jackson said the customer approached about 100 rubber shops, with Stern Rubber one of two that said yes. The customer produces a thin walled extruded rubber tube used in the bottom of sewer ponds to break down sewage. The product required wall tolerances tighter than industry norms.

“It's a spider web of PVC pipes that are coated with these extruded tubes that have thousands of holes punched in them,” he said. “The size of the hole is what dictates the bubble, and the smaller the bubble, the more efficient the hole. You then have more surface area to break down the sewage.”

The rubber part sets the size of the bubbles and works as a one-way check valve, not allowing water or sewage back into the system when the air is shut off.

The customer wanted to teach a company how to extrude the product from scratch, to show that it can be done consistently. Jackson said the customer was having problems maintaining those tight tolerances consistently with extruding firms accustomed to industry norms.

That business has been good for Stern Rubber. The firm and its customer partnered on one machine. Stern Rubber since has added a second extruding line, and both operate out of a 14,000-sq.-ft. building on the main campus in Staples. The extrusion operation employs about four.

Stern Rubber's gate valve business is so big it needs its own facility for the commodity valves it produces for two primary customers. The Aiken operation spans 10,000 square feet and consists of 16 employees, producing high volume valves of the 4 to 12 inch sizes via injection molding.

Stern Rubber's main operation produces the larger gate valve sizes bigger than 12 inches used in water treatment facilities. Some span up to 24 inches and weigh about 500 pounds. The firm also has a customer that buys as small as 2-inch valves.

The company also does a lot of work in agriculture with John Deere and in the snowmobile industry with two Minnesota-based firms—Polaris and Arctic Cat. New business in that area will require Stern Rubber to upgrade one of its injection presses at the main facility by early 2016. Jackson said the firm is hoping to get the press on order shortly.

“We're always looking for more work,” Jackson said. “The gate valve industry is one that they use the same parts for years and years, but the snowmobile world is a lot like the automotive world. Those parts have a very short lifetime.”

Jackson said Stern Rubber has been growing at about a 10 to 15 percent clip every year since coming out of the recession in 2008, though for 2015 he said so far the operation has experienced about 7 percent growth.

The firm primarily chases premium business.

“We don't sell on price,” Jackson said. “We're not usually the cheapest, but we offer the best value. We have very good quality, very good delivery, but we also help the engineers. We make design recommendations to help them save costs and help them choose materials. We sell more on the technical side than on the price side.”