Five years ago, SpaceGuard Products President Eddie Murphy hinted at some changes and growth on the horizon.
A 29,000-square-foot addition completed last year at the facility at 711 S. Commerce Drive on Seymour’s far east side is dedicated to warehousing and finishing and includes the brand-new automated powder coat line.
In May, the company received a 10-year tax abatement from the city to invest $425,000 in new manufacturing equipment, including a production saw, a CNC plasma table and tube cutting machine, press brakes, welders and fixtures, a monorail crane and batch processing powder coat booth and application equipment.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]
Click here to purchase photos from this galleryInstallation began at that time and should be completed by the end of 2020.
Perhaps most importantly of all with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, SpaceGuard Products has been going full force. Murphy said none of the nearly 50 employees has had to be laid off, and in the last five years, there has been a net increase of about 7 to 10% in the number of employees.
Adding a couple of colorful murals to the inside of the building where employees know leaders are investing in growth and new equipment, Murphy said that makes it a place where people want to work.
“Not to mention the fact our wages have increased significantly over the last five years,” he said. “I bet you our wages in the last five years are up 50%, and that’s a testament to the fact that we’re still able to put out a good product efficiently and cost-effectively. We’re competitive in the marketplace, but we’ve still been able to increase wages to keep up with what has been a competitive labor market until recently.”
He and Plant Manager Scott Jump credit everyone from the leadership team to the workers on the floor.
“We’ve had a good crew of people, and with everything that’s going on, everybody has done their part,” Jump said. “All of the employees have done their part and played their roles in making sure that we continue with a safe environment and clean environment.”
From the abatements to Murphy’s knowledge, know-how and foresight, Jump said SpaceGuard Products has been able to increase in size.
“We’re not the biggest in the industry, but we are a major thorn in everybody’s side now,” Jump said. “We’ve increased production quite a bit over the last five years with the equipment, with the expansion, with some changes in other areas, so it has definitely increased our growth in making us a bigger player in the market than what we were five years ago.”
Wednesday marked the company’s 30th anniversary. Murphy said a celebration had been planned for May, but it was postponed because of the pandemic. That will now take place in September, giving employees, vendors and customers a chance to celebrate together.
SpaceGuard Products was formed in 1990 through the consolidation of Logan Wire Co. and Ford Fence Co.
After it had been in operation for five years, Murphy’s father, Edward, and a business partner bought the company. A few years later, that partner left, and Edward became the sole owner until his son bought it in 2008 and became president in 2012.
The business was based on a woven wire-style partition guarding product. Since then, several products have been added.
Today, SpaceGuard Products is a manufacturer of woven and welded wire partitions and area guarding products, including wire mesh storage lockers, rack safety panels, aisle guarding and mezzanine rail guarding.
Its wire mesh partitions are available in standard and custom sizes for a wide array of uses, including machine and robotic guarding, computer security cages in collocation and networking facilities, tenant storage lockers, tool cribs, DEA and pharmaceutical cages and warehouse or retail security.
The FordLogan brand of woven diamond mesh partitions features SpaceGuard Products’ exclusive UNI-MESH design, which ensures that it’s the only product on the market with a true 1½-inch diamond opening across the entire panel.
FordLogan is branded as a wire partition solution, but it also is designed for applications, including window guards and railing infill panels, found in just about any type of business you walk in today.
In March 2016, BeastWire Mesh Guarding was created. It replaced five separate product lines and drastically reduced the number of components the company needs to manufacture and warehouse so it can deliver solutions quicker and more cost-effective.
“It was a huge step forward for our business, and it has become our flagship line as a result,” Murphy said.
A lot of the guarding is done for manufacturing in terms of robotic cells and automated work cells, and the company also makes controlled substance cages. They can be found locally at Lannett Co. Inc. in Seymour and the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department in Brownstown.
SpaceGuard products also makes a lot of guarding for the military, and a lot of the same product is used for wire mesh storage lockers used in high-rise residential buildings.
“We’re in just about every major market you can think of,” Murphy said. “We do a lot in New York, southern Florida and even the tallest residential building in Nashville, Tennessee.”
During the pandemic, Murphy said a big part of the business has been server cages for cloud-based computing and telecommunications.
“We put cages around servers to keep Facebook servers separated from maybe the NASDAQs or whatever,” he said. “That business has been extremely important for us over the last few months because that business, the e-commerce side of things, has really grown.”
With the recent expansion to the back of the building, the automated powder coat line has been a big addition. Murphy said the company’s equipment definitely needed to be improved.
“The last powder coat line we put in was in 1999. The equipment had just gotten so much better over the years, so the quality of our finish is phenomenal compared to where it was,” he said. “It also gave us a ton of capacity, so we’ve started taking on outside business to powder coat, as well.”
The abatement has allowed SpaceGuard Products to continue to bring in other types of automation.
“We’ve got a lot of capacity,” Murphy said. “Our high-capacity saw now has capacity to do even outside work if somebody needed us to cut down large amounts of steel for them.”
For the company, it’s a matter of making a better quality product and having a more efficient processing of materials, Murphy said.
“That’s really important today,” he said. “In the Amazon effect, everybody wants everything yesterday, so it has helped us cut our lead times down more than half, and it has helped us get to the point where we have a product that’s very stockable and readily available.”
Looking to the future, Murphy said they are finalizing a robotics welding line.
“We are going to be a contract manufacturer on a brand-new product that we do not currently make today,” he said. “I can’t really give you the specifics right now, but we’re really excited. It’s going to be a huge jump in revenues for this company.”
Murphy said even more than the revenues, he’s excited about the fact that the company is bringing in a level of automation it doesn’t have today.
That’s going to challenge employees to take the rest of its processes to that level, he said.
“I’m trying to build a company that will be successful and thrive in Jackson County for another 30 years,” he said.
Jump said they hope to employ twice the number of people they have now as a result.
“I hope we can,” Murphy said. “That would be awesome.”
[sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”At a glance” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
SpaceGuard Products is at 711 S. Commerce Drive, Seymour.
For information, visit spaceguardproducts.com or facebook.com/spaceguard or call 812-523-3044 or 800-841-0680.
[sc:pullout-text-end]