John Deere tips the hat to local plant

Employees at the Fisher Barton plant in Fountain Inn make 40,000 lawnmower blades a day.

The blades go into lawnmowers sold around the world under major brand names, or they’re shipped to distributors of replacement parts.

Representatives of one of the lawnmower brands, John Deere, traveled to the plant Monday to recognize the 125 employees with a special honor – direct material Supplier of the Year for John Deere’s Agriculture & Turf Division.

It was enough to send Phil Jaggers, president of the Fountain Inn operation, dancing down an aisle, holding the award high for employees to see.

The special ceremony took place in a tent just outside the factory walls.

“We have good workers all over the globe with Fisher Barton, but I’m a little bit partial to South Carolina,” Jaggers said, standing beside a sheet cake with John Deere’s green-and-yellow logo painted on the icing.

Deere & Co., the Illinois-based company that makes John Deere equipment, picked Wisconsin-based Fisher Barton Group out of more than 2,500 suppliers to receive the award, said Kim Narveson, supply base manager at Deere’s Southeast headquarters in Cary, North Carolina.

A big reason, she said, was Fisher Barton’s work packing 190,000 service blade kits with no interruption in service, a move that saved John Deere about 8,000 “truck lifts.”

Jeffrey Russell, vice president of business development for Fisher Barton Group, flew in for the ceremony from the company’s headquarters in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

He said John Deere is a demanding customer with “expectations for perfect delivery, perfect quality, and they want very, very fast reaction whenever an opportunity arises.”

“But having a demanding customer is a great thing,” Russell said. “Because when you meet their expectations, they reward you with more business. And that’s what we’ve done now with John Deere for, gosh, 30 some years.”

Russell said five of Fisher Barton’s nine plants supply Deere & Co., which presented the award to Wisconsin employees earlier.

The company’s 100,000-square-foot plant in Fountain Inn, in addition to making lawnmower blades, stamps and fabricates metal parts for lawn and garden equipment, robotic vehicles and other uses.

The machinery includes two 4,000-watt lasers capable of cutting a one-inch-thick sheet of steel, said Jeff Mazzola, vice president of sales at the plant.

The lawnmower blades get so hot during a heat-treating process that they glow orange. The process makes them extremely durable but not brittle, Mazzola said.

The blades are used in Honda and Husqvarna lawnmowers as well as John Deere lawnmowers, he said.