About Columbus McKinnon

Columbus McKinnon Corporation operates as a designer, manufacturer and marketer of intelligent motion solutions worldwide. The company’s key products include hoists, crane components, precision conveyor systems, rigging tools, light rail workstations and digital power and motion control systems. These are highly relevant, professional-grade solutions that solve the company’s customers’ critical material handling requirements. The company focuses on commercial and industrial applications that require the safety, reliability and quality provided by its superior design and engineering know-how. The company’s products are used for mission critical applications where it has established, trusted brands with significant customer retention. The company’s targeted market verticals include manufacturing, transportation, energy and utilities, process industries, industrial automation, construction and infrastructure, food and beverage, entertainment, life sciences, consumer packaged goods and e-commerce/supply chain/warehousing. In 2022, the company completed its acquisition of Dorner Mfg. Corp. (Dorner). Dorner is a leading automation solutions company providing unique, patented technologies in the design, application, manufacturing and integration of high-precision conveying systems. Dorner is a leading supplier to the stable life sciences, food processing, and consumer packaged goods markets, as well as the high growth industrial automation and e-commerce sectors. The addition of Dorner provides attractive complementary adjacencies, including sortation and asynchronous conveyance systems. Dorner offers a broad range of precision conveying systems to the company’s product offerings, which include low profile, flexible chain, large scale, sanitary and vertical elevation conveyor systems, as well as pallet system conveyors. Further in 2022, the company completed its acquisition of Garvey Corporation (Garvey), which further expanded its precision conveyance offerings. Garvey is a leading accumulation systems solutions company providing unique, patented systems for the automation of production processes whose products complement those of Dorner. Most recently, in April 2023, the company announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire montratec GmbH (montratec), a leading automation solutions company that designs and develops intelligent automation and transport systems for interlinking industrial production and logistics processes. The acquisitions of Dorner and Garvey and expected acquisition of montratec accelerate the company’s shift to intelligent motion solutions and serve as a platform to expand capabilities in advanced, higher technology automation solutions. In the United States, the company is the market leader for hoists, material handling digital power control systems and precision conveyors, its principal lines of products, and has strong market positions with certain chain, forged fittings, and actuator products. Additionally, in Europe, the company is the market leader for manual hoists and a market leader in the heavy load, rail and niche custom applications for actuation. The company has achieved this leadership position through strategic acquisitions, its extensive, diverse, and well-established distribution channels and its commitment to product innovation and quality. The substantial breadth of the company’s product offerings and broad distribution channels in the United States and Europe provide it a strategic advantage in its markets. The acquisition of STAHL CraneSystems (STAHL) in fiscal 2017, which is well-known for its custom engineering lifting solutions and hoisting technology, advanced its position as a global leader in the production of explosion-protected hoists. STAHL serves independent crane builders and Engineering Procurement and Construction (EPC) firms, providing products to a variety of end markets, including automotive, general manufacturing, oil and gas, steel and concrete, power generation, as well as process industries, such as chemical and pharmaceuticals. The company is continuing to transform from a legacy cyclical industrial company to a top-tier, secular growth, intelligent motion solutions company. In accordance with its strategic framework, it is building out the Columbus McKinnon Business System (CMBS) and growth framework to be market-led, customer-centric and operationally excellent with its people and values at the core. With CMBS as the foundation, the company is well positioned to execute its Core Growth Framework (Framework) strategy. The Framework defines four parallel paths for Columbus McKinnon’s growth and provides clear organic and strategic initiatives. The company’s Framework includes: Strengthening the Core which is a foundational path focused on initiatives that will strengthen competencies and improve the company’s competitive position within its existing share of its Serviceable Addressable Market (SAM). Initiatives include further developing commercial and product management competencies and improving the company’s digital tools for a better, more efficient customer experience. Growing the Core is a path that focuses on taking greater market share, both organically and through acquisitions, within its SAM. The company is making progress on this path with product localization, new product development and advancements in automation and aftermarket support for its distributors. Expanding the Core is a path that focuses on improved channel access and geographic expansion. Here the company expands beyond its SAM into the broader Total Addressable Market (TAM). This involves building out the company’s presence both geographically and in new verticals with expanded offerings, which it expects it can accomplish organically, as well as with acquisitions. Reimagining the Core is a more transformational path that rethinks the company’s TAM and targets strategic expansion beyond its existing TAM. As it thinks more broadly about material handling and increasing trends in intelligent motion, not just lifting, but solutions for how materials move throughout customer environments, there are some compelling ideas that emerge. The strategy is geared toward investing in new products that solve the company’s customers’ tough problems and expands into new platforms that provide intelligent motion solutions for material handling, such as precision conveyance capabilities. The acquisitions also allow Dorner and Garvey to expand geographically by having access to the company’s global footprint and provide it with an entry point into a pipeline of additional acquisition opportunities in the fragmented precision conveying industry. The company’s legacy Lifting business is cyclical in nature and sensitive to changes in general economic conditions, including changes in industrial capacity utilization, industrial production, and general economic activity indicators, like GDP growth. Business Description The company designs, manufactures, and distributes a broad range of material handling products for various applications. Products include a wide variety of electric, air-powered, lever, and hand hoists, hoist trolleys, explosion-protected hoists, winches, and aluminum work stations; alloy and carbon steel chain; forged attachments, such as hooks, shackles, textile slings, clamps, and load binders; mechanical and electromechanical actuators and rotary unions; below-the-hook special purpose lifters; and power and motion control systems, such as AC and DC drive systems, radio remote controls, push button pendant stations, brakes, and collision avoidance and power delivery subsystems. The fiscal 2022 acquisitions of Dorner and Garvey expand the company’s product offerings to include a broad range of highly engineered, precision conveying solutions. The company’s products are typically manufactured for stock or assembled to order from standard components, and are sold primarily through a variety of commercial distributors and, to a lesser extent, directly to end-users. The company’s STAHL subsidiary brings market leadership with independent crane builders and EPC firms. The diverse end-users of the company’s products are in a variety of industries, including manufacturing, power generation and distribution, utilities, wind power, warehouses, commercial construction, oil and gas exploration and refining, petrochemical, marine, ship building, transportation and heavy-duty trucking, agriculture, logging and mining. The acquisitions of Dorner and Garvey expand the company's reach to include the stable life sciences, food processing and consumer packaged goods markets and high growth industrial automation and e-commerce sectors. The company also serves a niche market for the entertainment industry, including permanent and traveling concerts, live theater, and sporting venues. Products Hoists - The company manufactures a wide variety of electric chain hoists, electric wire rope hoists, hand-operated hoists, winches, lever tools, and air-powered hoists. Load capacities for its hoist product lines range from one-eighth of a ton to nearly 275 tons. These products are sold under the company’s Budgit, Chester, CM, Coffing, Little Mule, Pfaff, Shaw-Box, STAHL, Yale, and other recognized brands. The company’s hoists are sold for use in numerous general industrial applications, as well as for use in the construction, energy and utilities, steel and metals processing, mining, transportation, entertainment, and other markets. The company also supplies hoist trolleys, driven manually or by electric motors, which are used in conjunction with hoists. The company also offers several lines of standard and custom-designed, below-the-hook tooling, clamps, and textile strappings. Below-the-hook tooling, textile, and chain slings and associated forgings, and clamps are specialized lifting apparatus used in a variety of lifting activities performed in conjunction with hoisting or lifting applications. The company also manufactures explosion-protected hoists and custom engineered hoists, including wire rope and manual and electric chain hoists. These branded products are sold to a variety of end markets, including automotive, general manufacturing, oil and gas, steel and concrete, power generation, as well as process industries, such as chemical and pharmaceuticals. High-Precision Conveying Systems – The company’s fiscal 2022 acquisitions of Dorner and Garvey expanded its product offerings to include high-precision, specialty conveyor system solutions. These conveyor systems range from build to order modular standard systems to highly engineered customer solutions. These products offer customers high quality and reliable solutions that enhance productivity and profitability. The company expects to further expand its product offering in the this space with the April 2023 announcement that it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire montratec. montratec product offerings complement both Dorner and Garvey, and further the company’s shift to intelligent motion and serve as a platform to expand capabilities in advanced, higher technology automation solutions. Digital Power Control and Delivery Systems - Through its Magnetek brand, the company is a leading provider of innovative power control and delivery systems and solutions for overhead material handling applications used in a number of diverse industries, including aerospace, automotive, steel, aluminum, paper, logging, mining, ship loading, nuclear power plants, and heavy movable structures. The company is a major supplier in North America of power and motion control systems, which include AC and DC drive systems, radio remote controls, push button pendant stations, brakes, and collision avoidance and power delivery subsystems. While the company sells primarily to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) of overhead cranes and hoists, it spends a great deal of effort understanding the needs of end users to gain specification. The company can combine its products with engineered services to provide complete customer-specific system solutions. The company is a leading independent supplier of AC and DC digital motion control systems for underground coal mining equipment. The company’s systems are used in coal hauling vehicles, shuttle cars, scoops, and other heavy mining equipment. Actuators and Rotary Unions - Through its Duff-Norton and Pfaff brands, the company designs and manufactures industrial components, such as mechanical and electromechanical actuators and rotary unions. Actuators are linear motion devices used in a variety of industries, including the transportation, paper, steel, energy, aerospace, and many other commercial industries. Rotary unions are devices that transfer a liquid or gas from a fixed pipe or hose to a rotating drum, cylinder or other device. Rotary unions are used in a variety of industries, including pulp and paper, printing, textile and fabric manufacturing, rubber, and plastic. Chain and Rigging Tools - The company manufactures alloy and carbon steel chain for various industrial and consumer applications. A line of the company’s alloy chain is sold under the Herc-Alloy brand name for use in overhead lifting, pulling, and restraining applications. In addition, the company sells specialized load chain for use in hoists, as well as three grades and multiple sizes of carbon steel welded-link chain for various load securing and other non-overhead lifting applications. The company produces a broad line of alloy and carbon steel closed-die forged chain attachments, including hooks, shackles, Hammerloks, and master links. These forged attachments are used in chain, wire rope, and textile rigging applications in a variety of industries, including transportation, mining, construction, marine, logging, petrochemical, and agriculture. In addition, the company manufactures carbon steel forged and stamped products, such as load binders, logging tools, and other securing devices, for sale to the industrial and logging markets through industrial distributors, hardware distributors, mass merchandiser outlets, and OEMs. Industrial Cranes - The company manufactures and markets under its Unified Industries brand overhead aluminum light rail workstations primarily used in automotive and other industrial applications. The company also manufactures crane components and crane kits through its STAHL branded products. Elevator Application Drive Systems - Through its Magnetek brand the company also designs, builds, sells, and supports elevator application-specific drive products that efficiently deliver power used to control motion, primarily in high-rise, high-speed elevator applications. The company is recognized as an industry leader for DC high-performance elevator drives, as well as for AC drives used with low- and high-performance traction elevators, due to its extensive application expertise and product reliability. The company’s elevator product offerings are consists of highly integrated subsystems and drives, sold mainly to elevator OEMs. In addition, the company’s product options include a number of regenerative controls for both new building installations and elevator modernization projects that help building owners save energy. Distribution and Markets The company sells its products and solutions through various distribution channels and direct to certain end users. The following describes the company’s global distribution channels: General Distribution Channels: The company’s global general distribution channels consist of: Industrial distributors that serve local or regional industrial markets and sell a variety of products for maintenance repair, operating, and production, or MROP, applications through their own direct sales force. Rigging shops that are distributors with expertise in rigging, lifting, positioning, and load securing. Most rigging shops assemble and distribute chain, wire rope and synthetic slings, and distribute manual hoists and attachments, chain slings, and other products. Independent crane builders that design, build, install, and service overhead crane and light-rail systems for general industry and also distribute a wide variety of hoists and crane components. The company sells electric wire rope hoists and chain hoists, as well as crane components, such as end trucks, trolleys, drives, and electrification systems to crane builders. Specialty Distribution Channels - The company’s global specialty distribution channels consist of: National and regional distributors that market a variety of MROP supplies, including material handling products, either exclusively through large, nationally distributed catalogs, or through a combination of catalog, internet, and branch sales and a field sales force. Material handling specialists and integrators that design and assemble systems incorporating hoists, overhead rail systems, trolleys, scissor lift tables, manipulators, air balancers, jib arms, and other material handling products to provide end-users with solutions to their material handling problems. Entertainment equipment distributors that design, supply, and install a variety of material handling and rigging equipment for concerts, theaters, ice shows, sporting events, convention centers, and night clubs. Service-After-Sale Distribution Channel - Service-after-sale distributors include the company’s authorized network of 23 chain repair service stations and over 229 certified hoist service and repair stations globally. This service network is designed for easy parts and service access for the company’s large installed base of hoists and related equipment in that region. OEM/Government Distribution Channels - This channel consists of: OEMs that supply various component parts directly to other industrial manufacturers, as well as private branding and packaging of the company’s traditional products for material handling, lifting, positioning, and special purpose applications. Government agencies, including the U.S. and Canadian Navies and Coast Guards, that primarily purchase load securing chain and forged attachments. The company also provides its products to the U.S. and other governments for a variety of military applications. Independent Crane Builders and EPC firms - In addition to the Distribution Channels, the company sells explosion-protected hoists and custom engineered non-standard hoists to independent crane builders and EPC firms. Independent crane builders are lifting solution developers and final crane assemblers that source hoists as components. EPC firms are responsible for project management or construction management of production facilities that purchase lifting solutions from crane and hoist builders. Competition Major competitors for hoists are Konecranes, and Kito (and its U.S. subsidiary Harrington) which merged with the Crosby Group; for chain are Campbell Chain, Peerless Chain Company (a U.S. subsidiary of Kito), and American Chain and Cable Company; for digital power control systems are Konecranes, Power Electronics International, Inc., Cattron Holdings (a division of Harbour Group), Conductix-Wampfler (a division of Delachaux Group), Control Techniques (a division of Nidec Corporation), OMRON Corporation, KEB GmbH, and Fujitec; for forged attachments are The Crosby Group, Brewer Tichner Company and Chicago Hardware and Fixture Company; for actuators and rotary unions are Deublin, Joyce-Dayton, and Nook Industries, a division of Altra Industrial Motion Corp.; and for precision conveyors and accumulators are FlexLink, Bosch Rexroth AG, MK North America, Inc., Duravant, Nercon Eng. & Mfg. Inc and Arrowhead Systems, recently acquired by Rexroth. Trademarks The company owns or has the rights to use certain trademarks, service marks and trade names that are registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Trademarks that are important in identifying and distinguishing the company’s products include, but are not limited to, Hammerloks and Herc-Alloy. The company also owns domain names, including its website, www.columbusmckinnon.com. Research and Development The company’s research and development expenses were $20,935,000in the year ended March 31, 2023. Environmental and Other Governmental Regulation The company’s operations are governed by many other laws and regulations, including those relating to workplace safety and worker health, principally the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) in the U.S. and others outside the U.S. and regulations thereunder. History Columbus McKinnon Corporation was founded in 1875.