In 1927, F. Carl Porter decided to take a chance. He had a steady job working for a company that made vulcanized fibre, but he knew that he could do it better, faster, and more cost effectively. F. Carl Porter knew he had the ability to turn cotton paper into vulcanized fibre better than his competitors could and 85 years later, this desire to improve the manufacturing process still drives New Process Fibre today.
So how do you survive, prosper, and continuously innovate for over eight decades? How do you make it through depressions, recessions, and wars while 99% of what’s around you fades away?
First, we built New Process Fibre around the concept of self-reliance. We make all our own plastics and tooling and do our own slitting and stamping. Many of our competitors either won’t or can’t make their own tooling, and they won’t even attempt to master the art of slitting. We make such high quality plastics, that some of our biggest customers are our competitors themselves! However, you cannot just survive on even the most outstanding products alone; you need a solid strategy to survive the vagaries of the business world.
At New Process Fibre, we decided long ago to focus on diversity over domination. Instead of focusing on one industry, we have stayed spread out. We are involved in all the major markets, but not heavily in any one. In fact, we serve over 2500 different companies worldwide.
When the US auto industry went sour in 2009, many of our competitors were either heavily damaged or forced out of business. Thanks to our focus on diversity, the blighted auto industry was only 5% of our business. Its collapse did not mean ours. When 5% of your business is hit hard, the other 95% is there to catch your fall, and allow you to patiently wait for that 5% to rebound. It is how we have weathered so much in the last 85 years. You don’t survive the Great Depression, World War II, and numerous recessions without a strong foundation built on innovation, self sufficiency, and diversity.
The purpose of this blog is to not only highlight new and exciting products and projects, but also to share New Process Fibre’s unique and time-tested business philosophy that has allowed us to survive and thrive for almost 85 years.
To learn more about our in-house extrusion, tooling, and stamping of non-metallic components, visit our website, or contact one of our experts today.