Bühler North America expands and strengthens its service network and offerings with the acquisition of Design Corrugating Companies. With this move, the company now operates seven service centres in the US, serving grain, oilseed, feed, petfood, and chocolate processors, as well as brewers and distillers, inks and coatings and many others who utilise roller mills.
It is a leading provider of roller mill parts and services, including roll reconditioning, new rolls, and other equipment parts and services, with facilities in Taylorville, IL, Oakdale, CA, Wichita, KS and Chattanooga, TN.
All locations will become new service centre sites in the company’s customer service network, and the entire staff has joined the team. Existing operations will continue unchanged, utilising the “pick-up, repair and deliver” model. The company will continue to provide parts and services for all makes and models of roller mills.
Future investments are planned for equipment that will allow new services to be delivered, and the full company supply chain will be leveraged to improve competitiveness in terms of cost and efficiency. Customers will also benefit from the company’s deep process expertise as an original equipment manufacturer, to deliver improved operational insights, along with the core services already provided.
Andy Sharpe, CEO, Bühler North America, said, “For us, this is only the starting point to develop the most comprehensive and value driving services in our industry. Today, the installed assets base of many companies is not running as optimally as it could be and consequently, they are wasting energy and raw material, and suffering quality and efficiency losses. We experienced that, with our services, we can achieve step change for customers especially when connecting companies to Bühler Insights, our digital platform, they can achieve the highest process transparency based on data.”
Brett Poland, general manager, Design Corrugating, who has become a Bühler team member and continues to lead the former Design Corrugating locations, said, “We are excited to now be part of the Bühler service network. The added resources and support that comes with joining the Bühler Team, will help us reach new levels of productivity, expand our service offerings and improve quality to all our existing and future customers.”
Digital connectivity, combined with local service centers and technical experts, will enable technicians to communicate and work on issues with plant operators in real time, using data and connected tools, such as BühlerVision, to deliver a much more proactive and responsive relationship, and maximise operational uptime and efficiency.
This acquisition represents the continuation of the company’s investment strategy in North America, following the addition of the Food Application Center (FAC) in Minneapolis, acquisition of new service center locations in Perham, MN and Springdale, AR, and upgraded office, production and application center facilities in Cary, NC.
With this, the company now operates 14 sales offices, four modern manufacturing facilities, 10 service centers, three application centers and two apprenticeship academies in North America. This infrastructure and a team of nearly 1,000 employees is laser focused on providing ever improving support to the North American market.