Miller Industries adding on to its U.S. plants as demand ramps up

Randy Cook assembles a hydraulic valve set while in the large wrecker assembly shop at the Ooltewah, Tenn., branch of Miller Industries Inc., on September 12, 2013.
Randy Cook assembles a hydraulic valve set while in the large wrecker assembly shop at the Ooltewah, Tenn., branch of Miller Industries Inc., on September 12, 2013.

Coming off a record year for sales, Ooltewah-based Miller Industries expects to continue growing this year, riding the tide of renewed, post-recession demand from tow truck owners and operators across the country and globe.

The world's largest manufacturer of towing and recovery equipment is currently in the process of expanding all of its American production facilities, two of which are in Tennessee - one in Greeneville and the other at the company's headquarters in Ooltewah - and two of which are in Pennsylvania.

Miller is adding more than 150,000 square feet of combined space to its U.S. plants this year, including a 27,000-square-foot expansion in Ooltewah. The company is adding 30,000 square feet of space in Greene- ville, and nearly doubling the size of its Pennsylvania facilities.

The Ooltewah facility is currently around 350,000 square feet, and the company is leasing 100,000 square feet of space on Amnicola Highway for storage.

"We've already outgrown our footprint here," William Miller II, president of Miller Industries, said Wednesday.

Miller said the Ooltewah plant alone has hired more than 100 new employees in the last year, and that "we are certainly busting at the seams with the current employees that we have."

Miller Industries officials are working on larger plans for the Ooltewah plant, including a $12 million, 120,000-square-foot warehouse and production expansion. That expansion is currently going through the rezoning process, as company officials seek to expand Miller's footprint onto newly-acquired property adjacent to their existing facility.

Miller said that project could be a year away.

"There's a potential for maybe a 2017 project, but it is in its infancy stage at this moment," he said.

The simultaneous expansion of all of Miller Industries' U.S. facilities is unprecedented for the company, and he attributed the need to growth coming out of the Great Recession, when business slowed down for the towing industry as a whole.

"I think a lot of it has to do with, in '08 and '09, our customers didn't buy a lot of new product," Miller said, "so there's pent-up demand from needing to replace old product."

David Crouch, sales manager at Crouch's Wrecker and Equipment Sales outside Nashville - a certified Miller dealership - said his business has felt the recent increase in demand for new trucks, which is in some part a result of operators holding on to the trucks they already have.

"You've gone from a time when you had 20 used trucks on the lot and maybe five or 10 new, to the opposite of that," he said.

And "we hope that changes real soon."

Reed said it's not uncommon for truck operators to trade in their old rigs and upgrade to a nice, pre-owned model, which saves them money from buying brand-new, and keeps inventory on the sales floor.

He also said 2007 was one of the best ever sales years for Crouch's.

But then came 2008, and 2009. And when the economy turned, drivers held on longer to what they had, and in some cases drove, and are still driving, their trucks to the point of scrapping them.

Now, many of those operators need trucks, but have a limited supply of pre-owned inventory from which to choose.

New truck sales have been trending upward at Crouch's for two or three years now, partially as a result, said Reed.

"This year, we've had slowdowns in production that have made it hard for us to kind of keep up," he said.

Contact staff writer Alex Green at agreen@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6480.

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