Texas Shredder? Texas Shredder Parts? TSP?

What’s in a Name, Anyhow?  

The principals in the story you are about to read are struggling with the name of their firm. On one hand, “Texas Shredder Parts” saw them through successful founding days. On the other, it no longer completely describes the company. Here’s why.

Perhaps not if you no longer feel the need to rely on the name used while you were earning your reputation. Perhaps not if you have busted through the parts door and added new dimensions to your business. Perhaps you simplify the name to "TSP," which, in its vagueness, lets you leave the parts-just-parts aspect of your reputation behind and allows you to move your business forward.

For the time being, the focus is on TSP. First, it is far more reflective of the 10-year-old firm that saw $800,000 in its first year of sales as a parts-only business, then grew to $20-plus million in 1989 sales--70 percent from parts sales and shredder fabrication and 30 percent from brokerage business. Second, the principals of the company believe their need for the Texas Shredder Parts name is diminishing.

This reasoning has just as much to do with the geographical portion of the full name as with the portion devoted to parts. Says one of the two founders, David Woody, "Our customers don't care what we're called. It doesn't matter to them whether we're in Toledo or St. Louis or where we get our castings. They trust us to get the job done."

Getting the job done in San Antonio and moving the job, a shredder, to the customer's site can involve a lot of fancy footwork ... or fancy shipping. The whatever-it-takes-to-get-the-job-done principle frequently is displayed in this area. On one occasion a trailer specially rigged with 42 tires was employed to haul a 123,000-pound shredder mill base from the San Antonio manufacturing plant to the Detroit customer site.

Getting the job done has also meant meeting installation deadlines even if it requires principals of TSP flying to customer sites to personally oversee start-up details.

"We do what we say we're going to do," Woody says. "We follow through, and our customers know it. We do a lot of business on a handshake."

Shedding the Parts-Only Image: Shredder Installations

The shredder fabrication part of this handshake business began with a contract with Commercial Metals, in Beaumont, Texas, in 1986. This contract represented TSP's second venture from the parts-only business; metal brokerage had begun in 1984. Today TSP has shredders in more dm 20 U.S. cities and downstreams (cleaning equipment) in about 50.

Recent installations include shredders at Southern Metals Co., Inc., in Charlotte, North Carolina; Wooster Iron and Metal Co., in Wooster, Ohio; Pine Street Salvage Co., in Abilene, Texas; and LMC Metals's Redwood City facility in California. Lined up for near-future installations are Automatic Recycling, in Wheeling, West Virginia; Friedman Iron & Metal Co., Greenville, Mississippi; Tennessee Valley Steel, Rockwood, Tennessee; IBS, Inc. (a division of Erman Howell), Peoria, Illinois; and Commercial Iron & Metals Co., Inc., Orlando, Florida.

Will overseas installations follow? Steve McGlothlin, cofounder, says perhaps. "We're not obsessed with the idea of moving into other markets, like Europe, but it's something we want and we're putting effort into."

Auto and No. 2 Shredding

All the shredders being installed by TSP are for autos and No. 2 steel only--a point the company emphasizes in their ads. "We call our products heavy-service shredders because that's what they are," says Woody; "we don’t suggest that they can replace a shear."

TSP highlights several features of their shredders m their sales pitch, all of which they consider improvements on the basic shredding principles. One of these features is the TSP shredder's new front wall. Typically the weakest part of a mill, its construction has been modified for increased strength. TSP shredders also feature a new rotor design, plus modular construction for easy installation.

But the product feature through which TSP distinguished itself, according to the company's vice president of engineering and principal designer, Jim Schwartz, is the downstream. He says shredders can have fairly complicated cleaning systems, with a lot of conveyors, cyclones, and fans. "We managed to simplify the thing considerably ... It was a radical change for this country."

Because of TSP's downstream, Schwartz adds, customers not only get cleaner shred but they save money on electricity since the system has so few parts to run.

This simplicity is Schwartz's overall design goal, along with strength in the machinery. He highlights the workmanship of TSP shredders, pointing out that the fabrication shop is certified by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

Schwartz says the equipment keeps evolving--"Every two or three months, we do something a little different. We like to go out and talk to people and see how their shredders are operating, then try to improve things little by little. We get a lot of ideas from our customers." He says TSP does some custom design. "A customer may have done something on his old machine that he would like us to incorporate in his new one."

More Attention to Customer Service

If a 42-tire truck is what it will take to ship an almost fully put-together shredder, a 42-tire truck it will be. McGlothlin explains TSP's thinking behind their shipping: "We try to deliver our equipment assembled as much as possible. It's a lot more convenient for the customer. If he's got fewer things to put together when the shredder arrives, he's not as likely to lose anything and he's got much less installation work ahead. ... Prior to sending any shredder out, we make it as operational as possible. We can't run it, obviously, but we go as far as we can to make sure everything fits properly."

Close attention to customers' needs and to servicing those needs has been a TSP objective since it was known only as Texas Shredder Parts. Woody says many companies recognized this objective early on and supported TSP through its development. "Al Worthen of Amalloy [a manufacturer of parts TSP distributes] helped us get started with the casting business, and Fred Schmidt of Owen Industries helped us win an important contract to reclaim metals. Yorke Doliner, Shredded Products/Roanoke Electric, and United Metals Recycling literally bought things from us they didn't need yet, just to help keep us in place during some tough years."

Woody adds that one customer gave the company half a million dollars for a shredder before TSP even wrote the contract. "There was no confirmation, there was no letter of intent, there was just a handshake. ... He knew we would follow through."

What’s in a Name, Anyhow?  

The principals in the story you are about to read are struggling with the name of their firm. On one hand, “Texas Shredder Parts” saw them through successful founding days. On the other, it no longer completely describes the company. Here’s why.

Perhaps not if you no longer feel the need to rely on the name used while you were earning your reputation. Perhaps not if you have busted through the parts door and added new dimensions to your business. Perhaps you simplify the name to "TSP," which, in its vagueness, lets you leave the parts-just-parts aspect of your reputation behind and allows you to move your business forward.

For the time being, the focus is on TSP. First, it is far more reflective of the 10-year-old firm that saw $800,000 in its first year of sales as a parts-only business, then grew to $20-plus million in 1989 sales--70 percent from parts sales and shredder fabrication and 30 percent from brokerage business. Second, the principals of the company believe their need for the Texas Shredder Parts name is diminishing.

This reasoning has just as much to do with the geographical portion of the full name as with the portion devoted to parts. Says one of the two founders, David Woody, "Our customers don't care what we're called. It doesn't matter to them whether we're in Toledo or St. Louis or where we get our castings. They trust us to get the job done."

Getting the job done in San Antonio and moving the job, a shredder, to the customer's site can involve a lot of fancy footwork ... or fancy shipping. The whatever-it-takes-to-get-the-job-done principle frequently is displayed in this area. On one occasion a trailer specially rigged with 42 tires was employed to haul a 123,000-pound shredder mill base from the San Antonio manufacturing plant to the Detroit customer site.

Getting the job done has also meant meeting installation deadlines even if it requires principals of TSP flying to customer sites to personally oversee start-up details.

"We do what we say we're going to do," Woody says. "We follow through, and our customers know it. We do a lot of business on a handshake."

Shedding the Parts-Only Image: Shredder Installations

The shredder fabrication part of this handshake business began with a contract with Commercial Metals, in Beaumont, Texas, in 1986. This contract represented TSP's second venture from the parts-only business; metal brokerage had begun in 1984. Today TSP has shredders in more dm 20 U.S. cities and downstreams (cleaning equipment) in about 50.

Recent installations include shredders at Southern Metals Co., Inc., in Charlotte, North Carolina; Wooster Iron and Metal Co., in Wooster, Ohio; Pine Street Salvage Co., in Abilene, Texas; and LMC Metals's Redwood City facility in California. Lined up for near-future installations are Automatic Recycling, in Wheeling, West Virginia; Friedman Iron & Metal Co., Greenville, Mississippi; Tennessee Valley Steel, Rockwood, Tennessee; IBS, Inc. (a division of Erman Howell), Peoria, Illinois; and Commercial Iron & Metals Co., Inc., Orlando, Florida.

Will overseas installations follow? Steve McGlothlin, cofounder, says perhaps. "We're not obsessed with the idea of moving into other markets, like Europe, but it's something we want and we're putting effort into."

Auto and No. 2 Shredding

All the shredders being installed by TSP are for autos and No. 2 steel only--a point the company emphasizes in their ads. "We call our products heavy-service shredders because that's what they are," says Woody; "we don’t suggest that they can replace a shear."

TSP highlights several features of their shredders m their sales pitch, all of which they consider improvements on the basic shredding principles. One of these features is the TSP shredder's new front wall. Typically the weakest part of a mill, its construction has been modified for increased strength. TSP shredders also feature a new rotor design, plus modular construction for easy installation.

But the product feature through which TSP distinguished itself, according to the company's vice president of engineering and principal designer, Jim Schwartz, is the downstream. He says shredders can have fairly complicated cleaning systems, with a lot of conveyors, cyclones, and fans. "We managed to simplify the thing considerably ... It was a radical change for this country."

Because of TSP's downstream, Schwartz adds, customers not only get cleaner shred but they save money on electricity since the system has so few parts to run.

This simplicity is Schwartz's overall design goal, along with strength in the machinery. He highlights the workmanship of TSP shredders, pointing out that the fabrication shop is certified by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

Schwartz says the equipment keeps evolving--"Every two or three months, we do something a little different. We like to go out and talk to people and see how their shredders are operating, then try to improve things little by little. We get a lot of ideas from our customers." He says TSP does some custom design. "A customer may have done something on his old machine that he would like us to incorporate in his new one."

More Attention to Customer Service

If a 42-tire truck is what it will take to ship an almost fully put-together shredder, a 42-tire truck it will be. McGlothlin explains TSP's thinking behind their shipping: "We try to deliver our equipment assembled as much as possible. It's a lot more convenient for the customer. If he's got fewer things to put together when the shredder arrives, he's not as likely to lose anything and he's got much less installation work ahead. ... Prior to sending any shredder out, we make it as operational as possible. We can't run it, obviously, but we go as far as we can to make sure everything fits properly."

Close attention to customers' needs and to servicing those needs has been a TSP objective since it was known only as Texas Shredder Parts. Woody says many companies recognized this objective early on and supported TSP through its development. "Al Worthen of Amalloy [a manufacturer of parts TSP distributes] helped us get started with the casting business, and Fred Schmidt of Owen Industries helped us win an important contract to reclaim metals. Yorke Doliner, Shredded Products/Roanoke Electric, and United Metals Recycling literally bought things from us they didn't need yet, just to help keep us in place during some tough years."

Woody adds that one customer gave the company half a million dollars for a shredder before TSP even wrote the contract. "There was no confirmation, there was no letter of intent, there was just a handshake. ... He knew we would follow through."