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Industrial Edition Austin International worldwide company BY JIM HEFFNER Staff Reporter October 25 & 26, 2000 Austin International, Inc. is Belmont's stealth industry. The company, located at 526 Woodlawn St. in North Belmont has grown significantly since opening in June of 1991. Many people will be surprised to find there is a large international company in Belmont Co-owned by Debra Ruth and Randy Austin, the compa- ny works closely with the elec- trical utility industry through- out the world. PRESENTED PLAQUE — Cohen Elgin (right), manager of Parkdale Plant 8 in North Belmont, receives a plaque from company president Andy Warlick for that plant’s achievement of submitting the most ideas for the Ideas in Action program. The plaque was pre- sented at the president’s semi-annual leadership conference at the City Club in Gastonia. PARKDALE From Page 4 ways to reduce waste and im- prove yield,” Coggins said. He also said that some associ- ates have done their own re- search and testing and found less expensive sources of equal quality machine replacement parts. P rkdale has found that the - Ideas in Action program has generated competition in cer- tain plants between shifts, and that they are able to take a suc- cessful idea from one plant and implement it at other plants. Coggins pointed out that the plants with the higher number of ideas submitted were usually where the managers were en- thusiastic about the program. “The seed for the program was something Andy had in his mind for four or five years,” Coggins said. “We had training classes for supervisors where they had to pair up into groups and do a project of their own choosing. “Andy liked one group's pre- sentation about a suggestion system or incentive plan where an associate would be rewarded for a good idea.” Coggins was asked to coordi- nate and establish a program for the whole company. “A committee was selected,” Coggins said, “we did the re- search, and it took flight.” Overall, the Ideas In Action program, which has been in ex- istence since Jan. 1, 1999, has been a success, Coggins said. “The projected annual savings is $2.5 million from the 2,200 ideas submitted, 35 percent of which has been adopted. Warlick says many of the in- novative changes at Parkdale recently have come from associ- ates’ ideas. “This is why the Ideas in Action program is so important for Parkdale,” he said. “These ideas keep us competitive with foreign yarns, give us competi- tive advantages over domestic competition, and improve safe- ty and morale.” Coggins says that as a pre- mier manufacturer of cotton and cotton blend yarns, Parkdale has always focused on innovative technology and the Ideas In Action program can be an important contributor to Parkdale’s future. “Innovation and Parkdale are synonymous,” he said. At the 58th annual Employee Involvement Association - Conference held last month in Orlando, Fla., Parkdale’s Ideas In Action suggestion program was the recipient of the 1999 award for the most outstanding first year program. E.IA. is a national organiza- tion with over 400 member companies from the United States, Canada, and Great Britain. Coggins, a graduate of UNC Chapel Hill, has been with the company for 30 years, 20 of them with Belmont Heritage, which Parkdale purchased 10 years ago. : His wife, Nancy, is a regis- tered nurse at Presbyterian Hospital in Charlotte. Active in Belmonts youth baseball pro- gram for over 20 years, Coggins worked for Dan River Mills for seven years before moving with his family to Belmont in 1970. They have two children, Boyd, a senior vice president of First Citizens Bank in Charlotte, and Becky, who is a second grade teacher in Greensboro. Boyd and his wife have two sons. Both Boyd, a graduate of South Point and Davidson College, and Becky, a South Point and UNC Chapel Hill graduate, were Phi Beta Kappa in college. Austin International bought the old Food Lion property al- most 10 years ago and since then has added more buildings and open holding areas. The property now consists of 13 acres with 125,000 square feet covered. "We bought the Vision Hosiery building in E. Belmont when the company closed, too," Ruth said. "That is three acres with 60,000 square feet cov- ered.” See Austin, Page 7 Photo by Jim Heffner DEBRA RUTH AND LOTS OF METERS — Debra Ruth, executive vice president of Austin International, Inc. stands with stacks and stacks of refurbished electrical meters. She and Randall Austin founded the company in 1991, and it has grown rapidly since that time, now employing 100 people. SS SS SS SS SS SS SE SS SS SS SS EE EE ES SS SSS SS SS SS SS SSS OS ES SS I SE ESSEX Four RR RR RR RR RRR RRR RR RR RRR RRR RR RRR RRR III, ERR LL IY ll A lS A i i i AMERICA’S TEXTILE COMPANIES. Much More Than You Think.® With locations in ‘Spindale, NC & Clover, SC Proud to be a Part of the Textile Community Four Leaf Textiles SSSI Leaf Textiles & Shelby, NC mm mm CS SS CX SS ss, 401 Guinn Street Clover, SC 803-222-8856 TS ESS os, I or ron, LL a rr, LALLA AIA, LLL ILLISE,
The Kings Mountain Herald (Kings Mountain, N.C.)
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Oct. 26, 2000, edition 2
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