May 25, 2009 – Four brands and growing
By Neil Pascale
Editor
URBANDALE, Iowa — For Curt Leaverton, the robotic arm that uses a Q-tip-sized sensor to calibrate measurement readings on dozens of spots on a single crankshaft is not enough.
Nor is the Dyno machine at the back of his 47,000-square-foot facility that tests and retests those precisely measured crankshafts and other hard parts.
Or the spot checks his staff routinely does on those outgoing hard parts at the facility located northwest of Des Moines, Iowa.
For Leaverton, owner of aftermarket manufacturer C&L Companies, moving product inspection past even those time-consuming and costly efforts has become a huge part of building his growing company to eventually becoming a one-stop shop for rebuilt off-road motorcycle and ATV engines.
Leaverton and his wife Evelina have spent the past two decades growing a chanced-upon good idea into an expanding business that now employs more than 40 and boasts four aftermarket brands, Hot Rods, Pivot Works, Hot Cams and Cylinder Works.
The business growth has been a result of a blend in expertise: Leaverton’s engineering background and his wife’s connections in Taiwan and her ability to turn those relations into solid business partnerships.
Leaverton and his staff design the engine components, which are then manufactured in either Taiwan or at the Urbandale, Iowa, facility.
As the company has grown from a spot in Leaverton’s parents’ basement to the sprawling Urbandale facility, so too has the attention to detail on product quality.
“The cost of poor quality is staggering,” Leaverton said, “not just in terms of the one item that failed but on the stress load it causes the organization to try to resolve the problem.”
Product quality is hardly a new initiative for C&L Companies, but one that keeps evolving. Leaverton is in the midst of stepping that product quality up even higher with a couple of new efforts, one of which comes from something Leaverton read about Wal-Mart. The retail giant, Leaverton says, uses a vendor report card system to grade its suppliers. C&L is using a similar system to grade its suppliers on their quality, pricing and how quickly they can deliver product.
The second step of this process, one that C&L is leaning toward starting, is setting a certain level, or grade, for each one of those key areas and then insisting its suppliers meet those levels to continue doing business with the company.
In another attempt to improve the product at its original place of manufacturing, C&L has invested close to $60,000 in a machine and accompanying software that will allow for precise measuring — checking for tolerances within thousands of an inch are not uncommon with such a device — on crankshafts and cylinders. This device will be sent to an overseas supplier so that product can be more thoroughly checked before it’s shipped.
Besides improving its product quality, C&L also has started two initiatives within the past couple of years. The latest — acting as a distributor of sorts for Vertex — is a first for the company. This spring, the company agreed to carry the well-known piston line for North America markets. The product is shipped to C&L’s Iowa facility then is sent to dealers through many of the industry’s national distributors.
“We’re used to developing our own product line from scratch — coming up with every idea, going through the whole product line,” Leaverton said. “This is the first time we’ve gone and had something drop in our lap, which is, to be frank with you, absolutely lovely.”
Leaverton notes the partnership with Vertex, an OEM supplier for KTM and other popular off-road brands, made perfect sense for C&L.
“It’s a great match for our crankshaft,” he said of the pistons. “If a person is replacing a crankshaft, it’s just guaranteed they’re going to replace a piston at the same time. And if you’re replacing a piston, there’s probably a 30 percent chance that you’re going to be replacing a cylinder.”
C&L also has that area covered thanks to its start-up in 2008: Cylinder Works.
“We know there is a market out there for people who are trashing their cylinders,” Leaverton said, “and there is absolutely a fairly long lead time from when a customer trashes their cylinder to when they can get it replated.
“Everybody in the motorcycle industry, when they want to go riding, they want to go riding now. There is no such thing as a back order or I’m going to sit around and wait until that part shows up. So that product line (Cylinder Works) was developed to get people back up and running as quickly as possible without waiting for the plating process.”
The development of that product line to include a more diverse selection, plus the company’s ongoing product quality initiatives, will enable C&L to continue its march toward becoming the source for rebuilt off-road motorcycle and ATV engines.
“Our company as a whole is set up to do a whole-packaged engine – the cylinder, the crank, the cam, the piston, the whole package,” Leaverton said, adding, “and that’s the ultimate goal we’re heading toward.”