Vehicle cover maker Covercraft to deploy more Eton 4000 system
04 Oct '05
3 min read
Vehicle covers - Covercraft
Unit sewn-product systems (UPS) provider Eton announces that vehicle cover manufacturer Covercraft is once again expanding its use of the Eton 4000 system in its Wichita Falls, Texas facility.
The upgrade currently underway will increase the number of loading, sewing and packing stations to the existing system, plus add an innovative new sorting and handling system that will automate the silk-screen printing process.
Currently celebrating 40 years in business, family-owned Covercraft Industries Inc is the largest manufacturer of custom vehicle covers in the world. Covercraft offers over 55,000 cover styles in 30 different fabrics and colors for a wide variety of interior and exterior vehicle applications.
Since moving the company from Southern California to Pauls Valley, Oklahoma in 1993, Covercraft has expanded to 400 employees by adding manufacturing facilities in Wichita Falls, Texas and Mexicali, Mexico.
The company has also focused significant effort on increasing efficiency in their plants. Early studies led to the realization that, due primarily to product size, operators were actually sewing only 27% of the time. The rest was non-value-add handling time.
Marty Lichtmann, Covercraft President noted that for two years they tried lots of ways to get more productive. After each new attempt at things like modular manufacturing, they kept falling back into the old habits. After a long evaluation of unit production systems, they finally took the big step of implementing Eton in their Pauls Valley plant in 1996.
marketing@alchempro.com
