We asked a few of our company leaders to analyze the year 2022 at Binkelman. Some of them shared their thoughts by drawing pictures with crayons, but we decided to only publish Brad Fitzgerald’s comments since he used words.
Q: What changes and/or growth did Binkelman experience in 2022?
Brad Fitzgerald, General Manager: We moved into our Bowling Green facility at the end of 2021 and the timing couldn’t have been better. Our larger space allowed us to make some strategic inventory investments, primarily in conveyor belting, electric motors and our other core products. As a result, our customers experienced little to no delay for those products. We were able to shield them from the supply chain issues that other providers had to deal with.
In 2022, we really grew our ability to help customers with their conveying equipment. Our Services division was busy all year removing, installing and vulcanizing conveyor belts. We were happy to double that business in the division’s first year of operation.
We’ve also grown our workforce by 20% over 2021 and we continue to invest in our employees. We have the best team in the industry and we’re very proud of the great work they do.
Q: How did those changes / growth positively impact your customers?
Brad Fitzgerald: Here’s an example. One of our best customers cycled through large volumes of one specification of conveyor belting from unplanned failures and we were able to keep them up and running with very little downtime. That belt specification was taking other providers up to 30 weeks to replace, but we had it in our inventory because we planned ahead.
Q: How does the company plan to serve customers even better in 2023?
Brad Fitzgerald: We will continue to build our inventories to support our customers. We’ll keep investing in our Services division so we can expand our capabilities. And, as always, we’ll prioritize investing in our people.