At 130 years old, York is one of the oldest brands in the U.S. But don’t
assume this company is set in its ways. While York International has certainly
learned to expect change over the decades, its Unitary Products Group (UPG)
has decided to not only embrace change, but also encourage it.
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out some of the
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& Cool Products
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“Some organizations are intimidated by change. We see it as a wonderful
opportunity for job enrichment and to allow people to strive to be the
very best they can be,” Tom Huntington, president of York UPG, tells
APPLIANCE. “Without change, things are just status quo and not
very fulfilling. With change, we place new challenges on ourselves, and
the
UPG organization has consistently met that challenge and exceeded it,
quite honestly, beyond our fondest plans.”
Perhaps the most recent evidence of that statement can be seen within UPG’s
residential products segment. In addition to preparing for forced changes
such as the upcoming 13 SEER requirement and R22 phase-out, York’s
residential segment has changed every aspect of its business—from
its production facilities and processes to the way it designs and markets
its products.
Of course, change is only good if it has purpose, and York UPG certainly
has a plan in place. With its success grounded in commercial products,
the HVAC company has aspirations for renewed growth, and it expects residential
products to help pave the way.
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 York
UPG’s Wichita, KS, U.S. facility produces
all of the company’s residential air-conditioners,
heat pumps, and furnaces. The 1.4-million-sq-ft
operation houses 1,191 employees and produces more
than 3,000 air-conditioners and heat pumps and
more than 2,000 furnaces on a daily basis. As part
of its growth plan, York has invested in its Wichita
operations over the last few years, building a
brand new 347,000-sq-ft air-conditioner factory
(pictured), a 205,000-sq-ft warehouse, and a new
shipping dock. |
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A Defined Direction
York
UPG is just one of the many divisions within York International, a
U.S.$4-billion, Fortune 500 company. However, with sales exceeding
$800
million this year, UPG clearly plays an important role within its parent
company’s portfolio.
“
We are certainly one of the largest competitors within the industry, with
a major focus on both the light commercial business as well as residential,
both new construction and replacement,” notes Mr. Huntington. “That’s
complemented by a major focus in manufactured housing. So it’s quite
a large breadth as far as our market focus is concerned, encompassing all
the way from 50-ton down to 1.5-ton products.”
UPG’s product line includes split air-conditioning systems, split
heat pumps, gas and oil furnaces, indoor air quality accessories, replacement
parts, and single-package cooling and heating units. Based on those products,
UPG is strategically divided into two main segments—light commercial
and residential, both of which operate out of their own facilities. The
commercial products segment is based in Norman, OK, U.S., where it receives
both engineering and production support. Residential engineering and production
is based in Wichita, KS, U.S., with a complementary factory in Apodaca,
Mexico. Wichita also houses Source One, York UPG’s parts support
for both commercial and residential products.
According to Mr. Huntington, commercial products have traditionally been
York’s strength. However, with all of the changes taking place within
the residential products segment, UPG expects to gain substantial share
in that segment, specifically in the replacement market.
“
We’re not walking away from any business segments that we currently
enjoy, but rather we’re putting additional focus on those things
that are hugely important to our future,” Mr. Huntington explains. “The
residential replacement business is certainly the largest segment of the
residential business, with approximately two-thirds of the business now
going to the replacement dealer. It also is the most lucrative. As we have
evolved our product lines to now include features such as indoor air quality
items, it’s a natural evolution for a company like York International
to pursue that marketplace.”
Wanting and achieving, of course, are two different things. According to
Mickey Smith, marketing manager, UPG has historically operated against
the marketplace trend. Even though the replacement market represents about
65 to 70 percent of the marketplace, York UPG tended to focus more on new
construction, which represents about 30 percent. “We recognize the
need to get into the replacement marketplace,” Mr. Smith admits. “To
do that, we needed a brand new replacement product offering that was not
just filled with bells and whistles, but that was geared to attract the
type of consumer that the industry is starting to cater toward—the
retail consumer.”
Achieving that goal, he says, starts with branding. “It’s not
just having a replacement product out there,” Mr. Smith explains. “You
have to cultivate the brand and build and position the brand so that it
becomes recognized and hopefully achieves top-of-mind awareness [with potential
customers].”
Fortunately, the residential group has invested a lot of time and money
defining its three main brands—York, Coleman, and Luxaire. York is
the company’s flagship brand and is geared toward the independent
contractor and replacement business. Using the tag line, “It’s
time to get comfortable,” Mr. Smith says the York brand supports
what the industry calls “the comfort story,” a buzzword that
focuses on providing consumers with innovative, value-added features like
higher energy efficiency and indoor air quality.
Tom Huntington, president of York International’s Unitary Products
Group, believes success starts with the UPG staff. “You start
by putting the right people in the right positions and allowing them
to influence the outcome, whether it be on the manufacturing side,
the engineering side, or the marketing side,” he tells APPLIANCE. “People
at UPG are extremely motivated to want to succeed, and they feel
they can make a difference.” |
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Luxaire, the company’s second main brand, is based on “setting
the performance standard,” with the dealer being the target. The
goal of this brand, Mr. Smith says, is to position the dealer as the hero. “The
theme is, ‘on time, on budget, and on your best behavior,’” he
says. “When we say ‘setting the performance standard,’ we
are not just talking about equipment performance, but also the dealer’s
performance.” To help its dealers maintain the brand identity,
York offers Liberties, a program that is designed to give smaller dealers
Fortune-500
type benefits and services, from creating their own brochure to 401K
retirement plans and health insurance.
UPG’s third brand, Coleman, is licensed from the Sunbeam Corporation
and also targets the dealer segment. Mr. Smith explains that the Coleman
brand is designed to embrace its traditional image as rugged and reliable,
using the theme “The Indoor Outfitter.”
All three brands, Mr. Smith notes, have their own specific target markets
and are not categorized using a good, better, best model. However, York
does follow that structure within each brand, with “good” referring
to basic, construction-style equipment, “better” referring
to sell-up replacement models , and “best” referring to premium
models that offer features such as 15 SEER and R410A refrigerant.
A Colorful Approach
Building on its clear branding strategy, York invested $19 million
dollars to develop an entirely new line of air-conditioners, heat pumps,
and furnaces.
The new products, launched this year, were designed to not only meet
future energy-efficiency and refrigerant requirements, but to bring
the “wow” effect
to distributors and consumers, a tactic previously unheard of within
the HVAC industry.
The company went as far as to hire a design firm, Fitch: Worldwide, to
create attractive products that smashed any previously conceived notions
of a dull, gray box. Working closely with Fitch, York’s residential
air-conditioner and furnace lines were completely redesigned from the inside
and out. The goal was to create noticeable product differentiation, and
based on industry response alone, York has certainly left its mark. As
anyone who visited this year’s International AHR show can attest,
the company’s Affinity series created quite a stir. The product line
not only features sleek designs with interesting curves and a creatively
integrated logo, its outdoor units come standard in Champagne with a choice
of six colors—Bermuda, Terra Cotta, Gunmetal, Chocolate, Stone, or
Jet Black.
After conducting extensive consumer research, York designed the Affinity
series around the notion that “people like color,” a theme
the company is using in its advertising programs. “The intent was
not to have these color options be our largest volume [products], but rather
to offer a unique selling proposition, so that when consumers say, ‘I
want the Terra Cotta unit. I want the Stone unit,’ there is only
once source—York,” Mr. Smith explains. “This isn’t
the case today when for years, as an industry, we have all been touting
the same feature set—efficient, quiet, and reliable.”
Mr. Huntington adds that York distributors and consumers aren’t the
only ones feeling the impact of redesign. “It has certainly set the
bar very high for the competition because it represents some of the best
consumer research that we’ve done,” notes Mr. Huntington. “The
appeal to have an attractive unit sitting alongside the house is very evident
through our research. It’s going to be a difficult challenge for
our competitors to attempt to match the York offering. It will literally
force every one of our competitors to react in some way.”
Taking its cue from the major appliance industry, the company also designed
the products to have a “family” look, tying together the indoor
and outdoor units within the brands and creating a very visible division
between the different brands.
To communicate its redesign, York is also taking a very different marketing
approach, including U.S. nationally broadcast television commercials that
focus on people, not product, and their love of choice. The company is
complementing that with extensive print advertisements in U.S. consumer
magazines, as well as communication tools for its distribution channel.
Building the Box
A production employee on a York UPG assembly line circuits
and brazes outdoor air-conditioner coils. |
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Investing in the exterior design, of course, was only part of the equation.
Engineering and manufacturing the products also required incredible investments
in time and money, and often required a completely new way of thinking
and building. As Mr. Huntington confirms, the first major change UPG residential went
through was at the operational level. “To implement our very comprehensive,
strategic plan, the first step was to consolidate manufacturing operations,” he
tells APPLIANCE. That included closing a facility in Elyria, OH, U.S.
in 2001 and splitting that production between Wichita and Apodaca. Wichita
took on all of the air-conditioning, heat pump, and furnace production,
and Apodaca took on residential air handlers and evaporator coils.
To accommodate for the increase, as well as for the new products to come,
York invested $30 million in the Wichita location. That included building
a new 347,000-sq-ft air-conditioner or “cooling” factory and
a 205,000-sq-ft distribution center York refers to as “the mixing
warehouse” because all residential products, including those from
Mexico, are sent there for distribution.
Production at Wichita is divided between the new “cooling” facility
and a “heating” facility, which was already in existence. The
cooling facility currently produces more than 3,000 air-conditioners and
heat pumps a day, and the heating facility produces more than 2,000 furnaces.
Neither facility is up to capacity, but Herb Batrouny, vice president and
general manager of Residential Products, explains this too is part of the
plan. “The intent was to put enough capacity here that we’re
not going to have to build more buildings [to accommodate growth],” he
says. “What we’re going to have to do is probably bring in
some additional fabrication equipment, but we’re not going to have
to go and do anymore brick and mortar.”
Mr. Batrouny says that although both Wichita factories are on the same
campus, they really operate independently. “You have the luxury of
having both factories on one site so we can move people back and forth
between seasons, but we pretty much try to operate as two smaller, independent
businesses within the one location,” he says. “We have two
different incoming receiving areas and two different quality assurance
labs, one within the heating factory and one within the cooling factory.”
Even with the recent investments, the Wichita location is already restructuring
to accommodate for the new product lines. One change will be within the
heating factory, which currently produces gas furnaces for residential
homes and manufactured housing. According to Mr. Batrouny, the manufactured
housing products will move to a different building within the campus to
make room for the new furnace products and to create a better workflow. “Right
now the building is a little congested, and the [assembly] lines are in
a horseshoe,” he admits.
The plan is to organize the heating factory like the cooling facility,
which has approximately 12 assembly lines with fewer workers to allow for
more flexibility and a greater product mix. Another goal is to operate
both factories in a “demand flow” environment, avoiding batching
as much as possible. “Tact times are less in flow than they are in
batch, so we need better systems as we have less time to react,” Mr.
Batrouny explains. “You only build what you need—don’t
build more, don’t build less. You don’t want a lot of parts
sitting around that could get damaged.”
Another effort is to move materials as close to the point of use as possible
in the fabrication and assembly areas to allow for better workflow and
to keep efficiency up. Other ongoing efficiency initiatives include KANBAN
and the 5S system—sort, straighten, shine, standardize, and sustain.
Currently, Wichita is only making a small portion of the new product line,
but it will be slowly ramping up to full production over the next year
and a half. “I would say if you look at what we are doing today,
new product makes up maybe 10 percent of volume in a year,” Mr. Batrouny
says. “But by 2006, it will be 100 percent. It will just phase in
between now and 2006. So the interesting thing is that the units we were
building here 3 months ago, you are not even going to see a year-and-a-half
from now. This puts a lot of things on people’s plates, but it also
gives you an opportunity to go in and do a lot of things that you wish
you could have done over the past 10 years. It forces change. Change is
good.”
To prepare for the new products, as well as to keep efficiency up, York
is investing in new manufacturing technology. The company recently purchased
two additional coil fin lines from Burr Oak Tool and Gauge Company to produce
the extra aluminum fins needed to meet the 13 SEER efficiency air-conditioner
increase.
York is also investing in two new automated presses, one for producing
the furnace doors and the other for fabricating air-conditioner tops. “Typically
the way things have been done in the past, you would have an operator perform
a press operation, put the unit in the basket, and move the basket to another
press, where someone else would do another operation. You may have three
or five people handling the part,” explains Mike Richardson, Wichita’s
operations manager.
According to Mr. Richardson, the new machines will be able to handle several
different blanks of steel and can be pre-programmed to make specific parts
on command. “You punch in the part number you want to build, and
at the end of the line, the part comes out,” he explains. “The
idea is you not only reduce your setup time, but you also reduce your scrap
and improve the utilization of the machines. Rather than having somebody
sitting there doing an operation, someone setting the part down, and someone
else picking it up, you just start with a blank of steel and when you are
done, you get the part with just one operator.” This, he says, not
only saves on labor, but also increases quality since there is less handling
of parts.
The plant has been using similar automation technology to build its metal
furnace liners, and it just installed the new equipment for the furnace
doors this past September. As of press time, the equipment for the air-conditioner
tops was on order and scheduled for installation in the first half of 2005.
Keeping Quality in Check
York is also using technology to keep product quality high both on and
off the manufacturing floor. On the plant floor, the production lines are
connected to a Critical Component Validation (CCV) computer system that
constantly checks the quality of a product as it moves down the line. “We
have certain key components that we get from suppliers that are bar coded,
and we have a computer system that allows you to scan that component,” explains
Mr. Richardson. “The system then goes out and does an online check
of the bill of material and confirms that you have the right component
to go on this unit.”
An outdoor air-conditioner coil is staged for the bending operation. |
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Critical parts of the production line are connected to the system, including
York’s digital optical comparator, also known as DOC. One of the
facility’s most prized pieces of quality equipment, DOC is essentially
a digital camera connected to a robotic arm that checks the swedge joints
made on heat exchangers. “The robot arm moves and measures the inside
diameter [of the tube], outside diameter, looks for cracks, and gives a
readout of all those critical characteristics to the operator,” Mr.
Richardson says. “After it has ‘passed,’ the robot
arms moves, picks up the label, adheres it to the vestibule panel of
the heat
exchanger, and moves it back to the operator. It makes it virtually impossible
to get a bad swedge joint.”
Operational method sheets are also part of Wichita’s quality system.
When a unit is passed on to a line worker, he or she is responsible for
checking the quality of critical operations to ensure everything was done
correctly. According to Mr. Batrouny, this helps workers understand that
it is important to do it right the first time. “Our people understand
that quality is what is going to not only keep York in Wichita, but also
continue to grow it,” he says.
Once a unit successfully moves through the line, it hits the testing area,
which is also connected to the watchdog computer system. Units are only
allowed to move on to the shipping warehouse if they have a bar code label
that indicates they have passed all necessary tests.
In addition to mechanical checks, York performs box audits and line process
audits on a daily basis. This means workers literally open boxed units
at random and perform visual checks. The facility also recently implemented
customer audits, in which it brings in some of its dealers to check products
right off the line. “We know what we’re looking for, but we
also want to know what they’re looking for,” Mr. Batrouny notes.
Quality assurance is also being measured off the manufacturing floor and
in Wichita’s 25,000-sq-ft engineering facility. Within the facility
is a small model shop, which is fully equipped to build prototype parts
and even includes a small press. There are also two separate testing areas
for both heating and cooling products.
The heating test lab includes 10 individual test cells, where engineers
perform temperature and other tests, conduct competitive benchmarking,
and develop prototype plans. One of the lab’s most high-tech pieces
of equipment is an infrared camera from AGEMA Infrared Systems that detects
temperature abnormalities within the heating units during the design process
rather than in production (i.e., a hot spot in a heat exchanger could indicate
premature failure). The company also recently purchased a Lansmont variable
frequency and amplitude machine that measures the rate of deflection within
units to determine stress points in the product design. The machine can
even simulate a cross-country trip in 3 hours and inform the testing engineer
of potential damage that could occur during and after transit.
The cooling lab also has its fair share of new equipment. It currently
houses five psychrometric test cells, two of which are brand new. Each
cell is completely automated and contains an indoor room and outdoor room
that can reach temperatures as high as 140?F and as low as -20?F. The two
new cells can be pre-programmed to run unmanned and can test for both R22
and R410. According to Cos Caronna, senior director of Design Engineering
and Product Management, the goal is to purchase additional psychrometric
cells and phase out the older cells, so that testing efficiency can be
continuously improved.
Other investments within the labs include a new gas chromatograph that
analyzes the fuel gas used in the test labs and a UV light chamber that
checks UV resistance and aging characteristics of any product part exposed
to UV light.
According to Mr. Caronna, one testing area Wichita has focused a lot of
its efforts on is sound. “Houses are now built closer together, and
there are a lot of issues [of air-conditioning units] echoing from one
house to another,” he explains. “So we spent a lot of money
in the past year-and-a-half upgrading our test lab.”
In 2003 alone, Wichita invested $400,000 in its sound and vibration testing
area. New equipment included an array of rotating microphones tied to an
automated data acquisition system that gives a complete frequency spectrum
and decibel readings; modal analysis equipment that measures tubing vibration
and pulsation; and a portable data acquisition system for field analysis.
The portable system is designed to be taken offsite and uses a transducer
to determine if sound coming from a unit is resonating off the walls of
a home.
Mr. Caronna believes that testing every possible angle of a unit is the
only way to produce a quality product, and the new equipment is helping
to achieve that goal. Using the information York has gathered from its
sound lab, combined with advancements in product design, he says the company’s
5-ton, 13 SEER air-conditioner is currently “the quietest in the
industry.”
Collaborative Design
For York, quality isn’t just about building a good product; it starts
in the drawing room. According to Mr. Caronna, that’s not typical
within the HVAC industry. “Historically in this industry, because
people didn’t want to see the units, they thought it didn’t
matter if a product panel didn’t quite fit, if it was scratched,
or if the coils had dings and dents [on them],” he notes. “All
of our coils now have a polymer protection around them because it not only
protects the coil against processing or installation damage , but also
against hail and other elements. We are trying to achieve a level of quality
that is really world class for our industry.”
To accomplish that, York is using a combination of new technology and new
philosophies. Specifically, the company has designed its product development
cycle around Pro/Engineer 3D modeling software and what it calls “collaborative
design.”
“
In the old days,” Mr. Batrouny notes, “marketing would come
up with an idea, and they would give it to design. Design would do a few
things, send it over to manufacturing engineering, and they would do a
few things. Then it would go to the supplier; they would do a few things,
and send it over to purchasing, and the plant would get something eventually.
Now we do that concurrently.”
York now has cross-functional teams that meet on a weekly basis, from the
beginning of the product design to the final result. The teams include
members from every company area, from purchasing and manufacturing to engineering
and marketing. Teams also meet with distributors and service companies
to make sure that all parties are involved and considered during the design
phase. This, Mr. Batrouny says, not only makes for a better product in
the long run, it makes for better work relationships. “It’s
not just that everyone knows up front what is going on, they are involved
up front,” he notes.
That didn’t come without its challenges, though. Mr. Batrouny and
Mr. Caronna both admit that it took some time to get people accustomed
to a new way of working, but in the long run, it was worth it. “It’s
a culture change when you have people doing it the same way for 25 years
and now we say we are now going to do things in parallel,” notes
Mr. Caronna. “You are getting them out of their comfort zone. You
have to bring them along and…say this is why we do it—to speed
up the product design cycle.”
Using the 3D software also involved a lot of adjustment, as York was previously
using a 2D system, but it also helped speed up the design cycle. “It’s
a major investment to get it set up because you literally have to go back
and create every single part on every single unit we make in this computer,” Mr.
Batrouny explains. “But once you get there, changing a feature within
a design is just a push of a button. Instead of doing paper drawings and
having to re-draw, the system re-sizes automatically, all the way down
to the component. You can send electronic files to suppliers. You can cut
tooling. It just all happens a lot quicker than it used to.”
There was also a learning curve associated with the new software, but Mr.
Caronna says it was just a matter of training some engineers on the new
software, while others continued using the old software.
So far, everyone seems to be successfully adapting. York has already developed
new design elements that have added several features to its products such
as quiet operation and ease of assembly. The new air-conditioner units,
for example, use a new composite base pan and compressor sound enclosure
system that is said to block out almost all compressor noise. “If
you look at the traditional types of blanketing compressors, you put this
Velcro blanket on it and you’ve got these nooks and crannies where
the compressor meets the base pan and a lot of sound is still escaping,” Mr.
Caronna explains. “This completely seals it, and that is because
of the material used.”
Referred to as the sound abatement system, the base pan is made of composite
material (as opposed to steel), and the enclosure uses a special insulation
material that attenuates frequencies, allowing engineers to “tune” the
system based on the type of compressor being used. “So whether it
is a reciprocating compressor or a scroll compressor, if there are different
frequencies you want them to absorb, we can go in and actually select different
types of materials internally,” Mr. Caronna explains.
In addition to lowering noise levels, the base pan also makes the units
easier to assemble and to service. “The [sound abatement system]
fits in grooves in the base pan, and all they do on the assembly line is
pull it forward, and it snaps in place,” notes Mr. Caronna. “Likewise,
if someone needed to service it, they would basically unsnap it, push it
back, and then they can get their torches around it. That came from a lot
of discussion with the manufacturing folks and service folks.”
York’s collaborative philosophy also carries into the supply chain. “I
like to work on developing relationships with our suppliers because I like
to work with their engineering staffs to figure how their technology can
integrate into our systems so that we can do something new and different,” Mr.
Caronna says. “You don’t just blow out standard parts to anybody
and everybody and then everything becomes a commodity. There are services
suppliers bring. If we don’t work with them and commit volume to
them, then they aren’t going to bring us new technology.”
When developing the base pan for its condensing units, for example, York
worked closely with Continental Structural Plastics (CSP) on selecting
the right material and how it could be strategically designed within the
unit. “They were engaged with us very early in developing the right
material in the process so that we came up with a design that helped them
to minimize cost, maximize their throughput, and get us all of the structural
and application characteristics we were really looking for,” says
Mr. Caronna.
The end result saved costs on the material side, as the companies discovered
that the composite material could be added in certain areas of the base
pan to give structural integrity, but that it didn’t need to be added
on the entire base. This kept quality up, but material cost and product
weight down.
York also worked closely with its wire grill supplier, Premier Manufacturing,
during the replacement products redesign. “That was a little bit
of a challenge because we went to them and said, ‘Here is our brand
strategy. We want different looks for these three brands. Show us what
your technology capabilities are in wire rod, flat wire, and how you attach
them,’” Mr. Caronna says. “We went through a lot of prototypes
with them. We looked at ballpark cost estimates and basically evolved into
the designs we have today. They were very supportive throughout the design
process.”
Some high-technology companies, such as Texas Instruments (TI), have even
approached York with exclusive product ideas and new technologies. “TI
does furnace controls for our gas furnaces,” Mr. Caronna tells APPLIANCE. “They
had some concepts on what some new controls could do, and they built prototypes.
They did all the reliability testing on the stand-alone control, and we
did a lot of the application-type testing. So they worked very closely
with us on that. And they are still working very closely with us on it.”
Future of UPG
Even with all of the adjustments York UPG has made over the last few years,
Mr. Batrouny says to expect more change in the years to come. “If
you are not constantly changing, you are going to get left behind a closed
door,” he tells APPLIANCE. “We are going to change, and then
tomorrow we are going to change again, and then we are going to change
again. We’ve got to get people used to doing things differently.
That is how we grow.”
Specific changes on the horizon include redesigning residential evaporator
coils and air handlers for 2006 production, as well as redesigning new
construction units. “Basically by 2006, we are going to have turned
over our complete residential product line,” Mr. Batrouny says. “We
will have a whole new look and a new whole line to cover the new construction
and retail replacement segments.”
According to Mr. Huntington, UPG as a whole will focus on leading the way
with high-efficiency products complemented by “ingenious controls” that
lend new dimensions to user benefits. “As a manufacturer that competes
in the HVAC industry, you have to maintain and build your four core competencies,” he
explains. “You have be an expert in heat-transfer surfaces; you have
to be an expert on how to apply compression technology; you have to have
the core competency of air movement—moving large quantities of air
very quietly and efficiently. And then you have to be able to marry all
of these core competencies through the use of superior electronic controls.
So as a manufacturer in this industry, we feel that not only do we have
those core competencies, but we have to build on them for the future because
they’re imperative to our future success.”
And while York always seems focused on reaching that next goal, it is still
proud of those challenges it has overcome along the way. “A major
challenge was consolidating manufacturing operations, and right on the
heels of that, the development of a whole series of new residential and
commercial products, combined with developing and implementing marketing
programs in support of those new products, and then building a corporate
infrastructure that includes advanced software programs—all the while
continuing to focus and build our quality systems,” Mr. Huntington
says. “Trying to do all those things in a logical, thoughtful pattern
that does not disrupt our relationships with our customers has probably
been the greatest challenge, but it’s also probably driven the greatest
enjoyment as far as personal satisfaction to see it all come together.”
Mr. Batrouny agrees, adding York’s success starts from the top down,
which has made the HVAC company an exciting place to work. “The excitement
around here is just building and momentum is building. To quote a sales
guy at one of our sales meetings, ‘A sleeping giant has awoken,’” he
says.
“
It starts at the top, having a solid leadership team in place that believes
in its people and is willing to take risks and invest in new plants, products,
procedures, and in people,” Mr. Batrouny continues. “That has
allowed us to start that change, to get us to where we are at today.” |
