ContiTech Conveying Solution's WCCO Belting unit proves DIY is way to go

WAHPETON, N.D.—You never know quite where—or even how far—"why not?" will take you.

That's a lesson that Continental's ContiTech Conveying Solutions' WCCO Belting unit learned the fortuitous way.

More than a decade ago, the facility—then family-owned WCCO Belting—brought machining of production tools in-house.

Sure, it was outside-the-belt thinking. But the move looked like it would position WCCO for success through greater efficiency and cost reductions. So, in the end, WCCO leaned into that "why not?" attitude that has come to define it.

"There is an old saying that 'necessity is the mother of invention,' " Wahpeton Plant Manager Rod Koch told Rubber News. "Our rural North Dakota location has always caused some logistical challenges, including the inherent travel challenge in the winter when blizzards can make travel difficult if not impossible. … (So) we are not afraid to try different concepts that aren't the 'norm.'

"We always say, 'you won't get in trouble for trying something new, but rather, you will get in trouble for not trying.'

So WCCO tried, and what it found was success.

" … Another side benefit that we quickly realized is that this entire program also allowed us to have a huge cost savings in our tooling overall, which was another huge win for the entire program," Koch said.

In fact, according to Koch, there have been nothing but upsides, particularly when it came to control of tooling quality, truncated tooling lead times and quicker product launches.

In short, he said, the plant relinquished "being at the mercy of outside forces."

Moreover, it caught the eye of Continental ContiTech, which acquired WCCO Belting in 2022. And it was, in part, the machine tooling capabilities that helped the Wahpeton facility stand out in a competitive belting space.

"Internal machining capability is not common for the majority of rubber plants globally, including Continental plants," Koch said. "As soon as we joined the Continental family in 2022, those same benefits—quality, timing, cost savings—also applied to other facilities beyond our own local facility."

Since the acquisition, the Wahpeton plant has been integrated into the Continental ContiTech fold. And that has meant using its machine tooling know-how to help increase efficiency and reduce costs for other ContiTech facilities.

The Wahpeton facility, which manufactures rubber belting for the agricultural and light industrial end markets, already has helped sister facilities across North and South America with tooling for their own products and equipment.

"The majority of our machining services surround tooling used in production to manufacture rubber belting products within our various locations," Koch said, "although other components can also be machined, such as critical repair parts for production equipment that might have experienced a component failure and spare parts that are hard to find."

That makes the Wahpeton facility an important part of the Continental ContiTech family.