“Take 5 With Dave” – Hank Little of Atlanta Attachment Co. talks about key issues facing bedding producers these days and previews a new encased coil recycling machine his company is bringing to market.
Transcript
Dave Perry
Hey, it’s Dave Perry. Welcome to another “Take Five with Dave.” Today I am with Hank Little, the President of Atlanta Attachment, a major exhibitor at EXPO. Hank, you’ve got three emphases at the show. What are they?
Hank Little
Dave first, thank you. Thank you for letting me be here and taking the time to talk to us today. And we’re very excited at this EXPO to focus on three areas. The first is material handling. Everybody complains about labor. So we have a lot of equipment that helps the skilled labor take the labor out of the manufacturing process. The second is sewing aesthetics because everybody likes to see new things to put on the bed with the launches.
So we focused on sewing aesthetics at the show as well. And the third thing is recycling. And we’re very excited about introducing our recycling machine dealing with IWCs in the mattress industry to help the landfills and promote going green and being aware of the environment around us.
Dave Perry
Yeah. And that product is right behind us. So tell us what you’re doing there. You’re taking individually wrapped coils and you are separating the non-wovens and the coil. So how are you doing that?
Hank Little
Basically, we had a request to look at this and we partnered with a small engineering firm out of Wisconsin. We developed this product, brought it to market in a one-eighth replica we will be producing the full-scale model before the end of the year, and we’re doing it by clamping the coils individually and cutting the bottom of the unit where the coil can separate from a non-woven indexing forward to two print finished products, one being a coil that separated and the non-woven separately from the coil that now the recycler does not have to worry about the full mattress in the landfill or handling the full mattress as they try to expose it, or dispose of. Excuse me.
Dave Perry
Yeah, that is a clever product. The initial reaction is what?
Hank Little
Been very well received here at the show. We’ve had a lot of interest both from the manufacturing sector as well as members of the MRC as well as mattress recyclers themselves coming in, wanting to understand more about the product.
Dave Perry
OK. And finally, Hank, we were talking before we started shooting the video about how the world has changed and that your thinking has had to change. What is some of the new thinking at Atlanta Attachment?
Hank Little
Very good question. And as everybody deals with the changes in the marketplace, from our perspective, we are very focused on trying to understand where the market’s going, what it’s doing, and trying to do it the best we can to meet the supply issues and demands of our customers. So we’re very focused on inventory. We’re very focused on forecasting.
And the biggest change is where we used to be able to get components, whether it be pneumatic, pneumatics, electronics or sewing heads. In a six to eight-week time fashion today. In a lot of cases, it’s out as much as 26 to 40 weeks. And so we’re ordering way ahead, doing our best to anticipate demand. Looking at historical trends based on current sales levels to make sure we continue to offer the best delivery possible to our customers.
Dave Perry
Yeah, Well, it’s always a pleasure to see what you’re doing. Great seeing you. Hope you have a great show.
Hank Little
Dave, thanks.
Dave Perry
A lot, man. Thank you. More videos to come.
