A Cut Above In Worcester | Howard Products makes variety its calling card
At the end of a dirt road just a couple of turns from Grove Street in Worcester, you’ll find Howard Products Inc.
When I arrived, I was greeted by Jeremiah Hawley, a member of the family that founded the company in 1948. He had with him a picture of Donald A. Howard, his great uncle outside the building as it was being constructed in 1952.
The treeless property was almost unrecognizable. Almost 60 years later, the neighborhood around the company’s Brookfield Street home is heavily wooded.
Howard Products is a sheet-metal fabrication job shop. That hasn’t changed, even though it’s grown from just a few thousand square feet to 11,000 square feet.
On The Homefront
The company got its start when Donald Howard opened a sheet-metal shop on LaGrange Street after World War II with equipment he designed and built himself.
From that small shop, Howard manufactured sheet-metal parts for the Brockton Baby Carriage Co., roof brackets, television antennas and other parts for electrical equipment.
Howard Products works with a variety of materials, from stainless steel to aluminum, and cuts that material with lasers, shears, saws and punches. The company does some assembly work, welding, bending and sanding, as well.
According to Hawley, the diversity and flexibility of its offerings helps keep the company strong. The firm’s products are found in the medical equipment industry, the automotive industry and electronics.
Two products he highlighted exemplify the flexibility achieved at Howard Products.
One looked simply like sheets of steel with holes of various sizes punched in them. That product is a chassis for a tube amplifier. The amplifier maker contracts with Howard Products to produce the platform and he installs all the electronics.
The other product was something called the shortening shuttle, which was invented by a local man in the 1980s and has been manufactured by Howard Products since the latter part of that decade.
The shuttle appears to be a simple long, welded aluminum box with two lawn mower wheels on one end and an upward-facing opening at the other end.
In restaurants, the shuttle’s upward-facing opening is parked under a fryer to catch waste oil. At the end of the day, the shuttle can be wheeled to a 50-gallon drum and tipped to easily dispose of the oil using two well-placed handles. It’s much easier and safer than using an open bucket to complete the task.
Hawley said the shuttle was invented by Gary Heisson, who had burned himself cleaning restaurant kitchens one too many times.
He patented the shuttle and asked Howard Products to make one. They did, and the next thing Heisson knew, he had more orders for the shuttle than he knew what to do with. He sold the patent to Howard Products, which, under the name Worcester Industrial Products Corp., has been making the shortening shuttle ever since.
All the success doesn’t mean Howard Products hasn’t been affected by the recession. The plant is down to a 32-hour work week, but the company is participating in the state’s Work Share program, which reimburses employees for a portion of the 8 hours they lose working that schedule.
Still, Hawley said things are picking up and the plant could begin a full 40-hour work week again soon.
“In the last 10 years, this has become a very low-stress environment,” Hawley said. “It’s more relaxed and it’s better for the guys.”
He said the company may even retain a four-day work week when it returns to 40 hours. That schedule allows employees who want to work overtime to do it on a Friday rather than a Saturday.
Got news for our Industrial Strength? E-mail WBJ Managing Editor Matthew L. Brown at mbrown@wbjournal.com.
Watch as Jeremiah Hawley discusses the robotics that the company has installed to make it more efficient:
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