The Manufacturing Express rolled into the southern Ohio town of Lebanon on a hot Wednesday afternoon for a memorable visit to Fecon– another employer, innovator, and equipment manufacturer. Today, staff from the shop floor and the front office were joined by local elected officials to honor the hard work they do and the important role they play in building America.

Fecon was founded as an Ohio-based company in 1992 and makes specialized equipment for vegetation management, and by “vegetation management” they mean everything from landscape architecture to battling forest fires. The company’s roots are in forestry mulching and if you know just one of their products it’s the Bull Hog mulching attachment. Initially, the attachments were for tractors from other companies, but Fecon began to vertically integrate and that included its own tractors.

The innovation of the Bull Hog would be difficult to overstate. After selling around 25 units in its first year it jumped to around 500 in the second, and now the Bull Hog line offers a variety of ways to address vegetation.

Touring the Fecon factory feels like a walk through several major American manufacturing trends. Nearly every function has a story, and those stories are about on-shoring, in-sourcing and merging automation with hands-on workers. The success from those industry trends is most often measured in time, with a materials process that used to take seven hours cut to 1.5 hours, or by moving to US suppliers — for example, two years ago, most of the Fecon steel was imported, now it comes from Indiana much quicker allowing for more in-time deliveries. Even the new painting facility was built in large part to remove a product-delivery bottleneck caused by out-sourcing that task. 

“Moving to U.S. suppliers has been really successful,’ explains Brandon Flexsenhar, chief operating officer, adding that of course some items are still imported, but looking at each step of the process, not only in the attachment plant but in other areas like assembly.

Fecon CEO Bob Dieckman says the company’s next steps will build on its reputation for standing behind its products, but might lead into purchasing technology and working to increase the environments where Fecon machines can operate, including challenging terrain and situations like firefighting.

“We have to just keep challenging ourselves to get better,” noted Dieckman.

Fecon’s diverse portfolio of products were all on display at today’s event. With Mulching tractors on both ends of the bus along with other pieces of equipment nearby, you can tell Fecon is committed to pushing themselves to be leaders in all different aspects of the land-clearing industry. -And our country is better off for it.

Thanks to the equipment made here at Fecon, America is able to clear land to build the houses we live in. We are able to clear vegetation around power lines to keep our country running. We are able to clear burning vegetation during forest forest to stop flames from spreading and keep our communities safe. 

Equipment like Fecon’s in the forestry industry touches our everyday lives in more ways than we often realize. And it’s all made right here by a team of over a hundred men and women here in Lebanon, Ohio.