Hitchiner Manufacturing readily adapts to changing markets

New Hampshire Business Review, Apr 25, 2008 by Stone, Tracie

A small acrylic paperweight dotted with odd-shaped metal parts sits on the desk of John Morison III, chairman of Hitchiner Manufacturing Company in Milford. Glass bookcases lining the walls of the company's corporate meeting room display larger objects. Some - the heads of Callaway golf clubs or the internal frame of a handgun for instance - are easily discernible. Others, like the fin of an air-to-air missile, are less obvious to the untrained eye.

The collection of odd articles have few commonalities at first glance, but taken together the pieces tell a story of a company that set roots in New Hampshire nearly 60 years ago and has gone on to establish itself solidly in the global market.

The world's largest commercial investment casting business, Hitchiner Manufacturing today supplies complete-to-print, high-volume, thin-wall castings and casting-based subassemblies and components to leaders in the automotive and aerospace industries, including General Motors, BMW, DaimlerChrysler, Lockheed Martin and Pratt & Whitney.

"Our use of technology has allowed us to succeed in as perfect a competitive industry as there is," Morison said. "We have a series of patented products which have given us a competitive advantage in certain niches like thin-wall castings."

Hitchiner owns and operates two production facilities in New Hampshire - a casting plant in Milford and a machining facility in Littleton. Its corporate headquarters and Metal Casting Technology Inc., a research and development company owned in joint venture with General Motors, also are located in Milford.

Hitchiner also has two facilities in Mexico, where it employs 1,500 workers.

Hitchiner's overseas presence is anchored in its sales efforts. While the company's direct sales unit is located in France, it maintains contract relationships with sales representatives in Sweden, Germany and the United Kingdom in order to better meet the needs of its European customers.

First forays overseas

Although a fixture on New Hampshire's industrial landscape since 1949, Hitchiner Manufacturing Company was started in 1946 by A. Fred Hitchiner as a brass foundry on New York's Long Island. The fledgling company was purchased and brought to New Hampshire by Morison's grandfather and father only three years after its inception.

The success story that is Hitchiner Manufacturing is a tale of evolution and adaptability.

"Because we are a process-based contract manufacturing company our product base can change every 10 years or so, Morison said. "We produced textile machinery and pieces for the gun industry - companies like Winchester and Colt - in the '50s, valves and valve bodies and parts for military applications in the '60s and golf dubs and more military pieces in the '70s."

By the 1980s, however, when the golf industry took its manufacturing operations overseas, Hitchiner began building a name for itself in the automotive industry. Its venture into the aerospace industry has come within the latest decade.

Hitchiner's involvement in the global market also has been an evolving one,

Its first foray overseas came in 1964 by way of a licensing agreement with a company in Finland. Similar agreements allowing overseas companies to use Hitchiner technology were later struck with companies in Japan, the United Kingdom, France, Yugoslavia and India.

By the 1980s, Hitchiner entered into its first international joint venture, exchanging technology for equity with a Brazilian-based company.

In 1985, at a time when more and more of its contract customers began manufacturing overseas, Hitchiner also began looking for low-cost manufacturing bases in other parts of the world. After eliminating locations in China, Taiwan and India for logistical reasons, Hitchiner executives decided to set up operations in Mexico, building their first casting facility there in 1986. A second facility dedicated to machining was built in Mexico in 2001.

Today, the Mexico plants produce 90 percent of the company's automotive parts, according to Morison. But, while operations in Mexico are well established, changes in today's auto industry indicate another evolution is in store for Hitchiner Manufacturing.

"For the last 15 years we have been producing high-volume carbon steel alloy parts, those used mostly in the power train of cars," Morison said. "Now changes in the auto market and a re-emphasis on reduced emission and increased fuel efficiency means the types of parts needed are changing. The parts we've been producing will not work with ethanol fuel, so we're seeing a growing demand for stainless steel parts."

For Morison, change on the horizon is nothing new. Hitchin has built a worldwide reputation on its ability to adapt, am Morison is confident it will continue to do so.

"This is really creating a new market globally," he said. "Identifying market opportunity is a real challenge - we just have to identify the best way to make it work."