Norres sees 'very bright future' for growth in North America

Scottsdale, Ariz. — Norres North America Inc. continued to make strides in 2020 in spite of the pandemic, notching overall sales growth for the fifth year in a row.

The flexible industrial hose maker based in South Bend, Ind., has plans to continue that upward trend as demand skyrockets in many of the industries Norres serves, including food and pharmaceutical, automotive, agricultural, exhaust gas, conveyance and wood processing, among many others.

"The future is very bright for us as a company," said Mark Bobonick, director of sales and operations for North America, at this summer's NAHAD Conference in Scottsdale. "We stood the test of the pandemic and we still saw growth.

"We are back to and even exceeding 2017-2018 sales levels right now."

A subsidiary of Gelsenkirchen, Germany-based Norres Schlauchtechnik, Norres N.A. was established in 2014 after the firm purchased a 30,000-square-foot manufacturing plant and warehouse that sits on nearly 4 acres in the heart of the Midwest.

"We are centrally located, very much aware of the proximity of our customers, many of whom are in the Northeast region of the country," Bobonick said.

In mid-2015, in a 15,000-square-foot refurbished section of the site, the firm started producing hose for sale in the U.S., Canadian and Mexican markets. And in the first quarter of next year, the hose maker plans to add between 18,000 and 30,000 square feet to the South Bend campus with a new facility, for a total of well over 50,000 square feet.

Between 12 and 15 employees will be added with the expansion, mostly in sales, bringing the North American faction to more than 30 employees overall — an impressive staff, considering the company's humble beginnings with only several employees when it began in 2014.

With a strong, 60-plus year legacy of manufacturing in Germany, Norres also boasts sites in the United Kingdom, France, Czech Republic, Poland, China, Italy, Sweden and Taiwan. Norres set up a production plant in the U.S. because "we wanted to take what we have established at our other subsidiaries and transfer our expertise across the North American market," Bobonick said.

The North American hose industry lacked both evolution and innovation, he said, and the stateside subsidiary was built with these motivations at the forefront to take advantage of this vacuum.

"We are innovators first and foremost," Bobonick told Rubber News. "No request is deemed unfeasible. Even if we might not be able to service a particular request, we have extensive research and development teams constantly reviewing our products to see what design implementations we could offer to make the product even better."

While the company works in cable protection and aeration systems, its focus remains on industrial hoses and accessories for a huge spectrum of industries, Bobonick said.

The North American side produces metal, Airduc, Protape, Barduc, Norplast, Norflex, Isoplast, Timberduc and Chip Profile high temperature hose lines, among others. And the South Bend expansion planned for next year will add another hose line for further domestic market penetration, Bobonick said.

The South Bend plant can manufacture roughly 50-60 percent of the products that can be found in Norres' most recent catalog.

Norres, which can colorize its hoses to match customer company colors (or otherwise), primarily produces abrasion-resistant polyurethane hoses; suction and transport hoses made from PVC, thermoplastic elastomers, polyethylene, EVA, silicone and other materials; high temperature hoses; electrically conductive and antistatic hoses; connecting elements; and accessories and numerous customized products.

Its hoses are available for the transportation of bulk solids in the food and pharmaceutical industries, for municipal vehicles used in sweeping and collection, as cable protection hose systems in the electro-technical segment, and as membrane diffusers in sewage plants.

And though the North American unit outpaced the sales rate of international Norres facilities over the last year during the pandemic, 2020 was not without major hurdles, Bobonick said.

One of those challenges continues to be a tight labor market. Last month, Time magazine reported that there are about 9.2 million U.S. jobs available — and the hose industry, like many others across the manufacturing spectrum, has found that filling them is a tough proposition in the current market climate.

"Everyone is experiencing this," Bobonick said at NAHAD. "If they tell you otherwise, they are not telling the truth. But there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel with the labor market."

Bobonick added that Norres N.A. "took aggressive action" and scaled back production during the pandemic, cutting back some hours but avoiding any temporary or permanent layoffs.

"Norres was very well-positioned for the two months or so of limitations," he said. "We still experienced growth on the North American side, though we did experience a slight decrease globally."

In addition, supply line issues have reared their heads for Norres N.A., though the company has "been able to mitigate these issues better than our key competition," Bobonick said, using a multiple-supplier philosophy for raw materials like polyurethane and PVC.

"And polyurethane pricing is starting to stabilize a bit," Bobonick added. "We are well-positioned with our raw material suppliers, and we are trying to source raw materials domestically."

Over the latter half of 2020, Norres N.A. overbought in some raw material spaces, buoying the company when lead times grew lengthy and "helping to keep customers satisfied."

"We are expanding our manufacturing capacity to fuel even stronger growth in the years to come," Bobonick said. "This increased capacity will offer even greater technology and position us to manufacture with even lower costs, which we can pass on to our customers."

Besides organic growth, the parent firm Norres Group — founded in 1889 — acquired Netherlands-based Baggerman Group, a manufacturer and distributor of industrial hoses, couplings and accessories, in late July.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

"With the Baggerman Group we have found the right partner for our internationalization strategy," Ralf Dahmer, CEO of Norres Group, said in a news release.

"The two product portfolios complement each other perfectly. Together with Baggerman, we are now represented in all relevant European markets through our subsidiaries, production facilities and distribution centers."

Through Baggerman, Norres will continue to offer its comprehensive product portfolio consisting of PE, PU, PVC and rubber hoses, as well as connection technology. "We are very much looking forward to the future cooperation with Norres," said Jan Baggerman, owner of Baggerman Group.

"The products, know-how and many years of experience of both companies are a great combination. We expect the concentration of the joint know-how to improve the solution competence and the service level for our customers as well as a good long-term perspective for the joint group."

Baggerman has branches in the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Hungary and Romania, employs 140 people and owns 35 registered trade names.

The acquisition is the third in the history of Norres, to go along with the purchase of Swedish hose distributor Jarl Elmgren A.B. and Italian hose manufacturer and distributor De Bernardi, both of which were bought in 2020.