OCALA, Florida – Are you sure this is a pallet plant? That was my first thought while walking through the new offices for the recently upgraded facility in Ocala, Florida. This headquarters location for Phoenix Wood Products certainly makes a good impression.
Over the past fifteen years, Phoenix Wood Products has pursued a strong growth strategy while focusing on pallet quality and just-in-time delivery for customers. A key partner who has made this possible is Phoenix’s strong relationship with Baker Products, which has supplied the sawing equipment necessary to turn pine lumber into pallet material.
Background and Company Growth
Steven Redrick, Stan Redrick and John Fitzpatrick believe in working hard and playing hard. They are the current owners of Phoenix Wood Products having bought the company in 1999. Previously, the Redrick brothers worked in the pallet industry for PALEX and Ridge Pallets. Chief financial officer, John Fitzpatrick, also previously worked at PALEX.
“We spend most of our time at work. We want it to be fun and work hard to feel good about what we have done at the end of the day,” commented Steven Redrick, president and co-owner of the company. “We strive to build a positive culture in our company. This office reflects our commitment to excellence.”
Phoenix’s management pursued a growth strategy to eventually cover the entire Florida region as well as some of southern Georgia. Seeing more business opportunity due to a larger manufacturing sector in Georgia, Phoenix Wood opened a facility in Ashburn, Georgia in 2004. Between the two locations, the company supplies customers in all of Florida, Georgia, Alabama, up into Tennessee, and up into South Carolina.
The company produces mostly specialty pallets produced out of southern pine. It has avoided the recycling sector suggesting it is really a “whole other ballgame.” Phoenix Wood Products processes dimension lumber in both plants. It can handle anything from a 2×4 all the way up to a 2×12, from 4 foot to 20 foot.
The Florida facility was landlocked with limited growth potential for that plant. Cory McGee, chief operating officer for Phoenix Wood Products, said, “In Georgia we had a lot more room to grow, so we really focused on growing our Georgia facility to get more volume. We’ve got two Baker multi-trim lines in Georgia that we run. We run two multi-trims and four Baker resaws.”
The Florida facility has been upgraded most recently. McGee explained, “Down here in Florida we have one Baker multi-trim line, one Holtec package saw and four Baker resaws. We took everything that we liked about what we had expanded in Georgia, and did that here at this facility when we built this one, and some of the things we didn’t like we did differently.”
The Florida plant used to be in a much smaller footprint next door. The company bought more property and expanded to its current size. The new Florida facility was opened in May 2018 to expand production and broaden the company’s growth potential. Having been with the company for nine years, McGee has provided steady on-hands leadership through the most recent expansion phase.
McGee said, “We strive to offer top-notch service when it comes to delivery times, which is one of the reasons we started our own trucking company in 2010. This gives us greater control on our supply chain and responding to customer needs.”
Phoenix Wood Products has tried a number of machinery manufacturers through the years. McGee explained that in 2013 the company dropped in a Baker double head resaw. He said, “We actually bought it used just to try it out and realized, man, this thing’s a little faster, cuts just as good, and the price is way, way cheaper than the other saws we have tried.”
As the company expanded, it opted for a lot more Baker equipment. McGee stated, “Since about 2014, every new saw piece of equipment we bought has been a Baker. So, when we were expanding this facility, we moved the existing saws that we had over here, the old two-headed resaws, and one single-head resaw. We purchased an additional resaw and a six-head multi-trim, along with a new notcher, a new chamfer and a new de-duster. It’s all new Baker equipment here as well.”
Between the two plants, the company has mostly Baker sawing equipment with some older saws from G-Tec. Although Baker has plenty of stock machines, it is also willing to make custom changes to fit different customer requirements. McGee said, “The one piece we had some significant customization on was the multi-trim saw. At that point in 2016, I think that Baker had a bunch of customers processing cants and logs but not a lot of sizing of dimension lumber on its multi-trim saw. We worked with Baker to redesign some basic components to make pallet wood flow better over it.”
Specifically, Phoenix Wood Products worked with Baker on some of the transitions from the infeed deck to the saw. McGee said, “We changed the height of the infeed deck and the saw… Even end rollers were way out here on the infeed deck. We had those customized to go inside the saw right before you get to the saw blades. Instead of a stacking conveyor, we had stacking chains made for the machine. You can pick up more wood faster that way by getting your arm up under the wood loads compared to just picking boards up by hand off a conveyor.”
McGee worked with Clay Hedrick from Baker to customize the machine. After a visit to Ellington, Missouri to see Baker’s operation up close, McGee was even more convinced that Baker was the right fit for his company’s needs. McGee remembered, “We walked and climbed all over a five-head multi-trim at the Baker plant and just really looked at it from top to bottom. We were able to identify what we really liked and wanted to change.”
Growth Brings Challenges
Since adding the Georgia facility, McGee has split time between the two plants, which are just about 200 miles apart. The most recent challenge has been getting the revamped Florida operation up to speed.
Staffing was the greatest challenge as the company has grown. McGee explained, “This Florida facility went from an old plant to this new plant; we added 18 jobs and had to deal with the influx of new workers who needed to be trained.”
The good news was that the Georgia facility was running well and led by long-term employees who knew what was expected and how to handle most challenges. This has provided the opportunity for McGee to focus on the new facility in Florida.
Phoenix Wood Products is not finished expanding. Steven Redrick said that a third facility is planned to be opened soon in Warren County, Georgia to produce new pallets. He explained, “This third facility will allow us to continue to grow and service even more customers.” It will feature Baker equipment as well. It will feature a Baker six head Ambi –Trim, unscrambler, double notcher, two double head resaws, deduster, and transfer conveyor.
Steven Redrick boasted, “We run two Baker resaws that were bought in 1994, and they still put out the production that they always have. They are easy to maintain.”
Focusing on softwood production has made Baker saws a good fit. Redrick explained, “For what we do with southern yellow pine, Baker is a good fit for the money.”
Labor Strategy
No surprise! The greatest challenge facing Phoenix today is the tight labor supply. That’s why the company must get as much production as possible out of its people and machinery. Steven Redrick admitted, “Yeah, there is a labor shortage for sure. But scarcity in our industry keeps the barrier to entry higher. Our strategy has been to do everything to overcome it.”
Phoenix has worked to find employees by partnering with a local convict re-entry center. The facility supplies some valuable labor although these workers present challenges of their own. That is one reason why the company has started working with a chaplaincy program to offer employee support services.
Redrick suggested that the pool of widely available Hispanic labor has reduced in recent years. Another major challenge is finding and keeping good truckers.
Redrick said, “We pay a pretty competitive wage and lease nice trucks with sleepers. Our drivers have good jobs and are home at night. Last year, trucking demand was a nightmare. The issue has mitigated somewhat this year although it can still be a challenge sometimes.”
Because Phoenix has strong hands-on management, the company is able to respond quickly to market changes. McGee said, “We can literally make a decision in a moment and that has allowed us to grow and respond to changing customer demands.”
Pallet Production Processes Requires Good Data
Another big focus for the revamped operations is data. McGee stated, “We have internal metrics that we grade ourselves on efficiency. We keep a record of everything. Every pallet we’ve ever built, I can tell you when we built it and how many we built by logging into the computer.”
McGee added, “We also grade ourselves on the number of units produced by the amount of man hours it takes to produce them. That’s weekly.”
Phoenix Wood Products prefers the Viking Champion and Rayco nailing machines. It currently has a number of Rayco machines on order. “We like these two machines because we can use every stick of lumber,” said McGee. “Very little material gets graded out. We can turn boards over and use them in our machines with no problem.”
Currently, Phoenix Wood Products runs six Champions and one Rayco at its Auburn, Georgia plant. The Florida location has three Champions and one Rayco with a number of Raycos and one Champion on order.
At present, Phoenix Wood Products has seven Raycos on order between its two plants and planned second facility in Georgia.
McGee said, “We have started buying a few more Raycos because they are cheaper, will produce more pallets per shift and are easier to maintain. But they are not built as robust and may not last as long.”
Champions produce about 500 pallets per shift for Phoenix compared to 600 per shift on the Rayco lines. Each machine is operated by one employee.
Strong Values Guide the Company’s Management
McGee pointed to the strong Christian values of the owners as a guide to the company’s philosophy toward its employees. He said, “You just treat people like people, and they’ll produce more for you. There’s statistics out there; people don’t leave jobs for money or anything. They leave jobs because of poor management.”
Three of the key pillars of the company’s mission are “Quality, Integrity and Reliability.” You don’t get that from workers unless you give it as management. McGee said, “Those are the values we operate on. Steven has been a huge mentor of mine since I was 24-years-old and came through the door here. He has stressed personal leadership and responsibility. It just isn’t about what you do in the office, it is also about who you are at home.”
