Headquarters: Brillion, Wisconsin
Founded: 1933
Revenues: Undisclosed
Employees: 1,200 (700 in Brillion)
Ticker: Private
Web Site: ariens.com
What it Does: Manufactures lawn mowers and snowblowers
How does a manufacturer of outdoor power equipment survive the vagaries of weather and overseas competition? Ariens Company, a Wisconsin-based maker of mowers and snowblowers for consumer and commercial markets, has thrived by updating manufacturing processes, nimbly diversifying, making key acquisitions in a consolidating industry, and managing the whims of Mother Nature.
“People don’t realize that the snowblower business can be up 150 percent one year and down 50 percent the next,” says President Dan Ariens, whose company is headquartered in Brillion, about 20 miles south of Green Bay. “Trying to sustain a number in a market like that is a significant undertaking.”
The company has been able to do that and more since Ariens became president of the family business in 1998. By adopting twin philosophies of lean manufacturing and judicious acquisitions, Ariens Company has experienced a 15 percent productivity gain and watched overall sales multiply to two and a half times what they had been.
The company was founded by Dan’s great-grandfather, Henry Ariens. His great-grandson toiled at the family business to help pay his tuition at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, joining the company for good in the mid-1980s.
After becoming president, Dan Ariens was determined to compete with overseas manufacturers and their low labor costs. His company streamlined the fabricating process for its spindle assemblies, which are used in rotary-type lawn mowers to support the cutter blade and hold it to the cutting deck. Ariens’ new process allows the spindles to be made by one person, instead of through an assembly line approach.
In addition, Dan Ariens introduced a more cost-effective distribution system. “Up until the late ’80s, we were a traditional company that went to market in a traditional wholesale- distribution method,” he says. As president, Ariens reduced the company network of distributors and began shipping most of its products directly to retailers. “That had a tremendous impact on our growth,” he says.
These major shifts have been made with virtually the same personnel in place: Forty percent of Ariens’ 700-plus employees in Brillion have been with the company at least 20 years. “We have good people who have lots of good ideas,” Ariens says. “Once you get that momentum going, it’s exhilarating.”
Around the same time that Ariens became president, the company stopped producing lawn tractors, sensing that the market had became saturated and that the demand had shifted to more maneuverable “zero-turn” mowers. These machines have since become the staple of both the Ariens consumer line and its Gravely brand of commercial landscaping equipment.
In 2006, the company diversified by entering the sports turf equipment sector, acquiring two specialty-mower makers, Alabama-based Locke Turf and St. Paul–based National Mower. Last year, it bought the EverRide and Great Dane brands of zero-turn, walk-behind, and stand-on mowers. Ariens’s production is done in Wisconsin (where Ariens has three plants), Alabama, and Nebraska.
Constantly making business moves, Dan Ariens says, is a strong hedge against foreign competition and seasonal shifts. “We look at the introduction of new products as having to account for as much as 30 percent of our growth every year,” he says. “In many years, it’s more than 50 percent. We’re an engine for new products.”
