KENTWOOD — Stiles Equipment Inc., a supplier of heavy-duty woodworking equipment towards business office furnishings business, is adding a line of machines for the little guy.
Ironwood, Stiles’ own brand of lower-cost planers, jointers, shapers as well as other wood-handling devices, is manufactured in Taiwan to the specifications arranged by Grand Rapids engineers.
“This just isn’t just intended to the guy working from the garage, or the three-man appliance store,” explained Stephen Waltman, vice president of marketing and advertising. “It could possibly also uncover its method to huge entrepreneurs who need to have a little design shop.”
The 15 devices from the Ironwood solution line range from $5,000 to $25,000.
While the bigger pieces with the cast iron-based machinery weigh about as very much like a vintage Volkswagen Beetle, the Ironwood lineup is Stiles’ entry into a highly-competitive sector — the smaller woodcrafter.
Waltman reported the business, recognized for its focus on technical training, will outshine the competition with its support to Ironwood owners. Buyers get a two-year 24/7 access to technical help.
On Tuesday, Waltman and Ironwood merchandise manager Chris Dolbow showed a handful of wood-industry magazine writers as a result of the complex at 3965 44th St. SE.
The firm, started 45 years ago by Web Stiles, is privately held, now owned by President Peter Kleinschmidt and David Rothwell, executive vice president.
Future month, Stiles is launching a new site that at some point will let its consumers to get gear on the net. Later this summer, an on the net contest will seek wooden shops that do not already use computer-numeric-control equipment, to vie for a one-year cost-free use of Stiles’ Weeke-Vantech CNC router, a appliance that sells for about $65,000. The router may be the company’s primary device while using base along with other supporting parts created inside the U.S., and assembled here by Stiles employees. The “business end” with the router is imported from Germany.
But the major news is Ironwood, Dolbow said. It’s the company’s initial “business-to-consumer” lineup.
“We’re searching at shaking issues up,” he told the little group of journalists. “We’re digging deeper into the market, to achieve customers earlier from the method and bring them towards the next stage. The elite-hobbyist and small-shop segment wants a a lot more creative strategy.”
How big is that marketplace? The U.S. has an estimated 200,000 smaller woodworking stores.
Stiles began expanding beyond its industrial-size machinery following the business office furnishings industry took a dip in 2001.
“We came out of that and stated, ‘We’re not broad adequate,’ ” Waltman mentioned. On the huge International Woodworking Fair two several years ago, Stiles introduced its Shop Solutions line-up for solid solid wood.
“We went from zero industry share to currently, market place leader in solid wooden,” Waltman stated.
But this year, to the very first time, Stiles is staying property from the large IWF occasion that for years met in Grand Rapids, but now meets in Atlanta. The event is Aug. 25-28.
“We’re not likely to go,” Waltman told the group. Stiles was one with the founders from the IWF, and usually brought the biggest set-up.
Each equipment the firm hauls towards annual show costs Stiles at the least $20,000, provided transportation and depreciation being a employed unit, he said. The company’s display incorporated about 80 equipment, covered 42,000 square feet, and required about 200 men and women to pull it off.
“We would like to pass on that savings to neighborhood shows, and products,” Waltman mentioned. This calendar year, that contains a “best practices” jaunt among the Chicago NeoCon show and Montreal for technical workers in the workplace home furniture market; a September “tribute tour” to Germany for the anniversary of Homag, a machinery maker in Bavaria; a fresh laser technology center on the local showroom; and the expense inside a additional effective web site.
