By Cindi Marsiglio
Kent has sold bikes to Walmart since 1997, and we’re proud of this new endeavor. While both of us are excited to bring these bikes to our customers, we all agree that in the end, the numbers must also make sense. With Kamler’s entire career spent in the bicycle business, he has the experience to make a confident decision in this area. “I think all things being equal, people would prefer a product to be made here,” Kamler said. “But the decision to do this wasn’t made on charity. After we started taking a hard look at all the factors that could make this work long-term… we strongly felt we could be very competitive.” WALMART’S COMMITMENT In January 2013, Walmart committed to American renewal by announc- ing it intends to help boost job creation and manufacturing in the United States through buying an additional $250 billion in products that support American jobs over 10 years. The time is right to bring manufacturing back to the United States. Overseas labor costs are rising, while energy costs in the United States remain low. It is good business sense to build things closer to the point of consumption, and America is where the innovation is happening. We are going to meet our commitment in a variety of ways, including buying more from existing domestic suppliers, doing business with new domestic sup- pliers, and where it makes economic sense helping current suppliers move production to the U.S. We see opportunities across a number of categories, such as simple textiles, bikes, furniture, eyewear, and vacuums. More importantly, the opportunities reflect the characteristics of each item highly automated production, things that do not ship efficiently, or things where the raw materials are available. We have over 1,300 categories we’ve evaluated and have hundreds of active projects ongoing. We’re proud of our
Through its commitment to buy U.S. made products, Walmart is leading the charge to encourage and help both U.S. and foreign manufacturers to set up operations on U.S. soil. For 56 years, Kent International Inc. has designed and produced bicycles. For the majority of those years, the manufacturing has taken place in China and Taiwan; however, in 2008, CEO Arnold Kamler found his family-owned company at a point that called for shifting gears. “It was a perfect storm. You had steel, aluminum, oil, plastics, ocean freight and currency all going up,” Kamler said. “I spent about six weeks traveling all over Asia, asking myself, ‘If not China, then where?’ The answer seemed to be nowhere for bicycles. The idea in the back of my mind was that maybe one day we could do it here in the U.S.”
``The U.S. is a very competitive place to manufacture for many consumer products.``
In March 2013, Kamler met South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley at Walmart’s U.S. Manufacturing Summit. The two began discussing the possibility of Kent opening a factory in South Carolina, and since then, the company has invested $4.3 million in a new assembly facility in the small town of Manning, South Carolina. By the end of 2016, Kent will produce 500,000 bicycles. Kamler estimates that the factory will bring up to 175 jobs to the area. They are also in discussion to grow their U.S. production even further. The bikes they make are the first U.S. assembled bicycles sold at Walmart in more than a decade.
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SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS • JUNE 2016
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