Michigan Fastener has quickly become a valuable supplier for many pallet companies.
This young fastener manufacturing business was launched by Jon Will eight years ago.
Right out of high school, Jon worked 18 years for a company that manufactured bolts and supplied the ‘Big Three’ automakers in the United States. “I got really familiar with the fastener industry,” he said.
He started Michigan Fastener while continuing to work full-time. “I was already successful in bolt manufacturing while working for someone else, and I took that knowledge with me.” He began with one nail machine in his garage “and worked extremely hard,” he recalled.
Eight years later, he is on his third facility. When he outgrew his garage, he put up a large pole barn, and eventually he bought a shop.
Michigan Fastener is located in North Branch, about 75 miles north of Detroit on Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. The company has 20 machines for producing nails. It uses all American-made steel. Jon keeps 800,000 to 1 million pounds of wire rod in stock. The company’s 26 employees work three shifts, six days per week, and every other Sunday; the third shift was added four months ago.
Michigan Fastener manufactures bulk nails and collated nails for the pallet industry. “We don’t have any complaints, and we have great customers,” said Jon.
Many Michigan Fastener customers use a variety of different nailing machines, including some of the most popular names in the industry, such as Viking and old Doig nailers. Jon makes a lot of the “no point” nails and diamond point nails. “We supply a lot of Amish manufacturers with diamond point nails,” he said. Michigan Fastener can manufacture any type of nail for assembling new pallets and repairing used pallets. Customers are also using small coils and soon highload nails.
“I like to deal with customers directly,” said Jon. “I think that’s really important. I’m on the floor. I see the process, I’m working on the process, and I’m also dealing with customers.”
Until a few years ago, about 80% of the company’s production was supplied to the shed industry and about 20% to the pallet industry. Now those percentages have flipped; the company’s dominant customer base is the pallet industry.
The company’s shop is 12,000 square feet, and Jon is adding on another 5,000. The additional space will be for stocking raw materials and shipping, which will open up more space on the floor to add manufacturing capacity. In fact, Jon has already ordered more machines.
When Jon talked with Pallet Enterprise, his company had just incurred another price increase for raw materials. “It’s completely out of our control,” he said, referring to steel prices. “We try to give our customers the best possible price we can.”
It takes three months to get an order of wire rod. “That’s why we carry so much on the floor, to make sure our customers don’t have shortfalls.”
Jon has not experienced difficulty keeping current customers supplied with the nails they need. “We don’t take on a customer if we’re not able to supply them,” he said. “We’re looking for long-term customers,” although he has occasionally helped out pallet companies that were unable to obtain nails elsewhere.
When he was young, Jon worked on his family’s nursery, doing landscaping and pinning burlap bags around the root balls of trees with special nails to prepare them for sale. When he launched his fastener business, he began producing the same kind of fasteners for attaching burlap to the root balls of trees. The nails are difficult to make, which spurred his interest in manufacturing nails.
Jon took online classes from Phoenix University and earned a degree in business management. “That really helped me,” he said.
His wife, Charity, has a large role in helping on the floor with packaging and quality control. She also runs the office with Jon’s mother, Julie. Jon’s two sons, Logan and Marshall, also work in the business full-time with his daughter, Sage, working part-time while she is still in school.
Jon works 14 hours a day, six or seven days a week. He starts work at 4 a.m. “You’ve got to work hard for what you want,” he said. “A business won’t build itself, and no one will build it for you.”
Michigan Fastener ships by the pallet at 2,400 lbs., 50 lbs. per box.
For more information about Michigan Fastener, call (810) 728-4005, visit www.michiganfastener.com, or email michiganfastener@outlook.com
