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By Jamie Swedberg
Having made significant inroads into the rubbish market, Woody says his company is tackling the dump-truck market, too. "We´re pretty much into covering and containment," he says. "As long as it falls under that, we try to get into it, but if it doesn´t, we try to stay away from it. You don´t want to get too diversified."
It was this series of changes that spurred the company´s explosive growth—from just a few family members to 31 employees in two facilities—in recent years.
Now, with its cavernous warehouse and cheery clerical staff, the firm resembles any number of other medium-sized industrial-fabrics companies. Still, it´s a little unusual at its core, and that may be one of the keys to its success.
Let the four winds blow
A loud jingling sound, like a behemoth bicycle bell, shatters the relative quiet of O´Brian´s 22,500-foot main facility. It´s the end of break, and a seamstress tucks a bookmark in her book and returns to work.
It´s a scene you might glimpse in hundreds of sewing rooms all over the country. Except for one small detail: The woman is only visible from the waist upward. The rest of her is concealed in a concrete foxhole in the middle of the floor. A glance around the room reveals several more foxholes, each outlined with yellow-and-black warning tape.
Sean O´Brian, Winnie and Woody´s 26-year-old son and the company´s sales and technical point man, explains: "A lot of other places have to build up tables around the sewing machines. But when we built this shop, we decided where we wanted the machines and just put holes in the floor." The result is that the floor acts as one giant sewing table.
Overall, the O´Brians have been happy with the innovation. According to Woody, it´s a lot easier for seamstresses to feed large tarps through the machines when they don´t have to hoist them over the edges of tables.
The system certainly frees up a lot of room to walk, and the building contractor´s initial fears of a leaky foundation have proved groundless. There is one drawback, though, Woody says. With a typical wooden table, a coating of silicone spray can render the surface extra-smooth for easy fabric movement.
With the foxhole system, a friction-free surface might translate into shop-floor accidents. "We kind of had to play with this," he says. "You can get the floor slick up to a point, but once you pass that, then you run into a danger of someone falling down."
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