By Marilyn Odendahl, Truth Staff
modendahl@etruth.com
ELKHART -- The production line is short and the workers are still being trained but Oscar Pardinas advised his visitor to come back in a year and see the changes.
Ricon Corp., a manufacturer of wheelchair lifts and ramps for commercial, paratransit, motorcoach and passenger rail vehicles, is expanding its local distribution facility to include assembly. With the additional capability will come a handful of new jobs and faster service for the bus manufacturers in Elkhart County.
Company officials decided a year ago to grow operations in Elkhart and although the economy has since stalled, the plan was not altered.
"This was not going to be put on hold," Pardinas, vice president of sales and marketing, said. "The bus manufacturers in Elkhart County are not going to go away. This is the hub of small bus manufacturing in North America. We need to be here."
Among the bus makers in Elkhart County are recreational vehicle giants Thor Industries and Forest River along with Glaval Bus, Supreme Corp. and Turtle Top.
Even though the bus industry has seen business drop because of the recession, overall the bus market is strong, in part, because of the inflow of federal and state dollars for public transportation and the push to get more commuters out of their cars and into mass transit, said Steve Spata of the Mid-Size Bus Manufacturers Association.
Moreover the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is pouring stimulus money into roads and bridges, which the bus will use, and $8.4 billion into mass transportation.
"I can't help but see a pretty bright future for public transportation," Spata said.
Placing an assembly line in Elkhart will cut the turnaround time from five days to one day so local bus manufacturers will be able to get the wheelchair lifts and meet market demand quicker.
Currently the lifts are built at Ricon's main plant in California and then shipped to the facility at 2850 Gateway Drive. While the distribution side of the business will continue in Elkhart, the assembly as well as the testing and packaging segments will begin, first to supply Elkhart County manufacturers and then, possibly, growing to provide lifts to other manufacturers along the East Coast, Pardinas said.
In California, between 70 and 80 wheelchair lifts are assembled each day. The production in Elkhart will ramp up, Pardinas said, although how many will be produced in a single day will depend on customers' needs.
Also the payroll will increase from four workers to, perhaps 12. It's not a significant employee base but Rick Thompson, general manager of the Elkhart plant, noted Ricon relies on other local vendors for products and as Ricon's demand grows, the vendors will have to expand.
"We're looking at creating jobs as we grow," Thompson said. "That's what we want to do. We want to keep adding people."
As one of the top three wheelchair lift manufacturers, Ricon, a Wabtec company, has a solid position in the marketplace, Spata said. It will not be usurped by an upstart lift manufacturer nor will its products become obsolete. Low floor and kneeling buses are growing in popularity but they cannot be used for every application.
"I don't know that it's necessarily going to be at a volume that there's no more demand for a wheelchair lift," Spata said. "I don't see the lifts going away anytime soon."