Racine-based Twin Disc Inc. will increase its production capacity by about 20 percent with the addition of a distribution facility in Yorkville and another in Texas, president and chief executive officer John Batten said.
The maker of marine and heavy duty off-highway power transmission equipment will lease 35,000-square-feet at 2000 S. Sylvania Ave. The additional space will allow the company to move its aftermarket parts out of its facility at 4600 21st St in Racine.
“We’re basically just going to be stocking and shipping all of our space parts from there,” Batten said, adding around 10 or 12 people would work at the facility.
While the parts business has historically been located at Twin Disc’s Racine facility, the assembly of industrial PTOs and clutches was brought back to Wisconsin from India in recent years as the company dealt with the downturn in its oil and gas markets.
Those markets have since turned around. The company saw sales increase 43 percent in fiscal 2018 and the growth continued in the first quarter of fiscal 2019. Batten said the company needs additional space at its Racine facility to accommodate the growth.
The plan is to move the work that came from India to a new 50,000-square-foot facility outside of Houston, Texas with 12 to 20 employees.
“We’re not reducing those jobs in Racine,” Batten said, noting that it would not make sense to let people go in a tight labor market.
The addition of 85,000-square-feet of new space represents a roughly 20 percent increase in Twin Disc’s capacity, he added.
