Craft Tire Inc. recently purchased the assets of Shrader's Inc. from President John Shimer. The assets include the company's Greenville, Ohio, OTR retread plant and equipment.
That gives Craft Tire two OTR retread plants. The other is at the company's headquarters in Uniontown, Pa.
The two operations will be run separately, according to Craft Tire President Allen Craft. The Greenville plant will operate as Shrader Retreading, a division of Craft Tire Inc. However, both plants will wholesale strictly to dealers.
According to Modern Tire Dealer estimates, Shrader's retreaded 41 OTR tires per day, making it the 23rd largest retreader in the United States. Craft Tire, which is known for its large OTR cap-and-casing inventory, produces seven to eight OTR retreads per day in Uniontown.
Craft says he is excited about the acquistion. "We're experimenting and trying to find new ways to give better service. Two weeks turnaround is the norm for OTR retreading, and it's easy to meet that during slow periods. But when you're peaking up, (turnaround) may be backed up three or four weeks."
Sometimes an OTR retreader can get away with three weeks, but longer than that is unacceptable, says Craft.
"We have our operations manager in Greenville experimenting with different shifts, looking at ways to retread faster. Sometimes it's not the retreading process but the trucking time."
Craft says all the Greenville plant's employees have been retained, which more than doubles the number of company employees to 71.
