Coming Full Circle
Raw Materials/Parts
By Joanna Miller   
Tuesday, 01 May 2007
smc Trinity Products has been in business for nearly 30 years, but it only recently began to live up to its name, offering services in all three stages of the steel pipe process: manufacturing, fabrication and distribution.
Trinity Products has been in business for nearly 30 years, but it only recently began to live up to its name, offering services in all three stages of the steel pipe process: manufacturing, fabrication and distribution.
Trinity Products Inc. has been in business for nearly 30 years, but it only recently began to live up to its name, offering services in all three stages of the steel pipe process: manufacturing, fabrication and distribution.

Its most recent development, the addition of a manufacturing plant, has transformed the company “from being a mistress to the wife” in terms of its relationships with customers, says Robert Griggs, owner.

Griggs founded the Missouri company with two partners in 1979 as a steel pipe distribution company. He later bought out the partners. In 1986, the company acquired 15 acres of property and built a fabrication facility.

Adding fabrication services allowed the company to diversify its customer base, Griggs says. This expansion also brought about the addition of a new product line – high-rise sign structures – that led to the addition of billboard fabrication.

The company recently built a pipe mill that produces 16-inch-diameter to 120-inch-diameter pipe. There is only one other company in the United States with similar capabilities, according to Paul Vivian, director of sales and marketing.

Trinity is in the process of becoming certified by the American Petroleum Institute (API) to be an API manufacturer of pipe to convey liquids and gases – the highest quality of pipe in the world, he notes. “We have purchased [the most high-tech] equipment there is going right now,” Vivian says. “We feel like we will be able to be the low-cost producer. We are flexible to customer needs and, really, there is only one other company in the United States that [can compete].”

The new mill has an ultrasonic pipe tester. Vivian says this also sets the company apart from many others in the industry. “This further guarantees quality,” he says. “As soon as pipe comes out of the mill, it goes through inline and offline testing. When something comes immediately off the mill, the process can be stopped right there is there is an issue. It reduces the amount of rejects and scraps.”

The company’s new manufacturing capabilities have allowed it to become vertically integrated, taking raw material to the finished product stage and selling it to the final customer. “It’s very unique to take the combination of a company that’s been around for 29 years in the fabrication and distribution business and combine it with a manufacturing process,” Griggs says. “What you generally see is companies out there who do two of the three.

“More often than not, it’s three separate companies out there doing distribution, manufacturing and fabrication.” The combination of all three is a benefit to the customer, he says. “It makes us the low-cost producer,” he explains. “Customers don’t have to deal with three different people. We control it. We take the raw material and give them the finished product. It’s seamless.

“I tell my customers all the time, ‘When you give me this order, go to sleep. If you’re worried, worry about other parts of the project. We take care of our part.’” The new mill also allows the company to supply more product to its customers. “We might have been a No. 2 or No. 3 vendor for customers,” Griggs notes. “Now, we’re not looking at a whole new customer base. “We’re taking our current customers and supplying more of the product they use,” he continues. “We’re becoming more valuable, moving up to No. 1 or No. 2. We’ve gone from being the mistress to the wife. I don’t know if that’s always good or bad. The real benefit to this is that we’re buying more steel and passing on the savings to customers and increasing our buying power.”

Griggs, who is a past president of the National Association of Steel Pipe Distributors, says Trinity has maintained a 90 percent growth rate since 1993 with estimated 2006 sales of $26 million. With the new mill and a full year of production for 2008, the company expects sales of $35 million next year. Trinity serves customers throughout North and Central America. Its customers typically complete heavy and civil construction, and highways, bridge and foundation work.

The company has worked on several projects in Times Square, as well as NASCAR scoring towers, cell towers and wind towers. It also provided materials for piling foundations at Ellis Island and new piers on the Hudson River. It is currently under contract for the new Freedom Tower at Ground Zero in New York.
 
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