Nearly two years after breaking ground on its sprawling, state-of-the-art rigid core manufacturing facility in Cartersville, Ga., Wellmade has officially launched the second phase of its plant expansion. The producer of high-quality hard surface flooring has added new capabilities, capital equipment and automation to better service its growing OEM customers base.
“The plant was originally built to house enough equipment to be able to produce about 300 million square feet per year—so it’s a very, very big facility,” said Dick Quinlan, senior VP sales and marketing, Wellmade. “Phase one, which was completed in February of 2022, started with eight extrusion lines, which, at full capacity, can produce about 80 to 100 million square feet per year. We went through all of the issues and challenges of starting a new plant—getting all the equipment and training people—and all of that was done in the middle of the pandemic. There were some startup challenges, but nothing that was insurmountable. We had the advantage of having George Chen who has designed more SPC plants than probably anyone in the world in the plant the whole time.”
Up to now, according to Quinlan, Wellmade had been producing at a rate of about 300 to 350 truckloads a month, which translates to anywhere from 6 million to 8 million feet per month. But given the spikes in demand the company has experienced in recent months, it knew it was going to need more capacity to feed that demand.
Hence this next stage (Phase 2) of the plant expansion. Wellmade is already in the midst of adding new equipment and technologies to churn out more square feet per month. “The step we’re taking entails bringing in the next round of machinery, including eight more extruders,” Quinlan stated. “That means we’re essentially doubling the number of extruders we have. Over time we will have about 21 extruders in the plant, which will push us to the 200-million-square-foot annual mark.”
Those numbers are nothing to scoff at. In fact, according to Wellmade, the increased production would put the company on an elevated level. By Quinlan’s count—even before the new equipment is added—Wellmade currently produces roughly 50% of all the SPC made in the United States. This achievement is especially critical during a time when the industry at large is facing so many challenges with imported SPC and other rigid core flooring products.
“We’re investing in growing our business in the U.S. because we anticipate really strong tailwinds with higher freight rates and some of the things that were going on a year and a half ago that are still impacting the industry,” Quinlan explained. “Yes, some of those issues have gone away, but there have been new ones that continue to create strains on the global market—global tensions between China and Taiwan; Panama Canal issues; the Uyghur stoppages, etc. All this has impacted our decision to continue to make investments in the United States as opposed to somewhere else.”
Increased capacity—although significant—is only one aspect of Wellmade’s plant upgrades. The next iteration of extruders, according to Quinlan, will also have the ability to run more sophisticated embossed-in-register (EIR) technology. At the same time, Wellmade is close to launching a new bevel profile called True Edge Bevel—an innovation that does not require actual painting of the bevel on the production line. “It’s designed to create a look that is more realistic than painted bevels,” Quinlan explained. “That’s another thing we’ll be showing at Surfaces to get feedback from customers. We think this is a really good opportunity to create some new designs that more closely resemble a traditional wood floor.”
Emphasis on automation
Another focal point of the updates to Wellmade’s Cartersville plant is its use of automation. Much like its manufacturing operations in China, where very few hands touch the material as it’s going through the plant, the U.S. facility will make use of the latest technology to streamline production.
“The areas where there’s usually a lot of touch in overseas plants are areas where packing or multiple different points where things are loaded and unloaded from the line,” Quinlan explained. “Our production operations are extremely efficient, all the way from extruder to finish line to milling and packing. Basically, we load the product at the front end of the line and nobody touches it until a pallet is lifted off the end of the line—all packaged and wrapped and ready to ship.”
But perhaps the most impressive aspect of the latest plant updates is Wellmade now has the ability to run much wider films—all at faster rates—through the production lines. That gives the company the capability to meet customer demands for wider/longer boards. “Basically, if you run film that’s a 1300 format, you’re going to produce more product off that same production run, so you get an extra 25% of production in the same line,” Quinlan explained. “The other thing we really like about the wider films is it gives us the ability to continue to expand the width of the products we sell because the width of the product is dictated by the size of the film. With the 1300-grade film, we can make a product that’s 7.5 inches wide or 9.5 inches wide and make it even wider. The plant can virtually do anything that we would like it to do in terms of style, design or lengths.”
