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Agri-Fab, Inc. is a manufacturer of lawn and garden attachments located in Sullivan, Illinois. Agri-Fab operates a . manufacturing facility〔(Hoovers. Retrieved July 8, 2011. )〕 and at peak season employs nearly 400 employees in a town of 4,700 and the surrounding area. == History == The story began in 1975 with the idea of developing a new and improved lawn sweeper. Soon, Agri-Fab® went on to redesign and manufacture a product that outperformed any lawn sweeper on the market. The result attracted the attention of a major retailer and, ultimately, catapulted Agri-Fab into the position of an industry leader of lawn and garden attachments. Agri-Fab expanded its manufacturing facilities to meet its customers’ potential needs, with the addition of a 12,500-square-foot building. The building was finished early in 1987, just in time for the lawn and garden season. The expansion proved necessary. Orders for the new lawn sweeper were heavy, and overall company sales doubled. AF’s business model included the development of a complete product line, ranging from lawn carts, lawn sweepers and aerators to fertilizer sprayers, spreaders and snowblades. Not everything the company produced was to be attached to a tractor. Agri-Fab was also producing environmentally friendly products that relied on muscle power. In addition to standard wheelbarrows, its precision-balanced poly wheelbarrow allowed the user to haul several times his or her weight. Its silent push reel mower, with blades that were precision ground to the point where the blade and the cutter bar did not touch, was the best in the business. Even as Agri-Fab added new products, the lawn sweeper continued to be the mainstay of the product line. Gradually, Agri-Fab became the dominant source in the lawn sweeper business. After its successful re-entry into the lawn and garden manufacturing arena, Agri-Fab’s growth continued. Through the period of the early 1990s, the business had doubled in size from what it was in the late 1980s and doubled in size again by 1999. One reason for the continued growth was constant reinvestment back into the company operations and infrastructure. Three years after going into business, Agri-Fab invested in its first computer. Early on, using its previous experience with a larger organization, the company purchased software with the capability of taking data from the shop floor—from part numbers to costs to labor distribution—and entering the data automatically into the general ledger. Having such up-to-the-minute data allowed the company to react to customer needs and make better business decisions, and provided a basis for a future conversion to completely integrated manufacturing and management systems. By the late 1980s, regulations on liquid-paint spraying required all large manufacturing companies to convert to a high-solids paint. This was to be a costly and troublesome changeover. After researching all potential alternatives, in 1993 the company purchased and installed four powder-coating spray booths in a newly constructed paint building. The powder coating process eliminated all air pollution and hazardous waste, while increasing product appearance and durability. One of the challenges faced in the early 1990s was drawing enough workers from the surrounding area to keep up with growth. Automation was utilized to supplement the existing work force. Agri-Fab built a new 110,000-square-foot building and modernized its operations with computer-controlled assembly lines that monitored each unit by weight to determine if any parts were missing. The use of robot technology was implemented in areas such as welding, drilling and strapping to help streamline the process. Agri-Fab also installed sophisticated laser equipment, which eliminated the high cost of precision tooling for lower-volume work. As the 21st century arrived, the company faced increasing competition from overseas products. Quite often these products were almost complete copies of AF products. As this trend had been increasing in frequency and severity, the company began the initial stages of an anti-dumping petition. With help from several law firms and internal effort by AF employees, a petition was filed in June of 2008. Company executives traveled to Washington, DC in July of 2008 to appear before the International Trade Commission. While there was opposition to the petitions by some US competitors and Chinese manufacturers, the board voted unanimously to launch an investigation. In addition to the efforts required to move this forward, the company worked to design new, patentable products. 2008 saw the creation of the SmartSweep (trademark). This all new version of Agri-Fab’s most popular product provided features no other sweeper on the market had. June 2009 saw the final hearing on the anti-dumping petition. In the hearing, both sides were allowed to make their case in front of the commissioners before the final vote. No opposing forces attended this hearing. July 15, 2009 the ITC released the results of the investigation. All six commissioners voted in favor of Agri-Fab and the domestic manufacturers of Tow Behind Lawn Groomers. Agri-Fab operates an on-site subsidized daycare center for the children of its employees, enabling families to better balance home and work. The company also donates funds to the community through many charitable organizations including area churches, hospitals, schools and foundations. 〔http://www.agri-fab.com/Utilities/AboutUs/OurHistory.aspx〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Agri-Fab」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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