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Durant Manufacturing Co
901 South Twelfth Street
1956
Watertown Daily Times, 04 19 1956
Another new industry will locate
in Watertown in the very near future, it was announced today. The Durant Manufacturing Company of
Milwaukee, manufacturers of industrial counting and measuring machines, today
announced its decision to erect a branch plant of 22,000 square feet in
Watertown. Location of the plant will be
at the northeast corner of Clark and South Twelfth Streets on a seven acre plot
of land which has been turned over to the Milwaukee concern by the Watertown
Association of Commerce Promotive Corporation, an
organization which was formed some years ago by Watertown merchants for the
purpose of promoting industrial expansion in the community.
1956
Watertown Daily Times, 07 26 1956
Construction of the branch plant
of the Durant Manufacturing Company of Milwaukee is well underway. Steel structural work has been completed and
mason work has begun. The plant will contain 22,000 square feet and will be
erected at a cost of $160,000. Maas Bros. have the general contract. The building is scheduled for completion
before the end of the year.
1957
Watertown Daily Times, 02 08 1982
Durant Digital Instruments marked
25 years of operation within the Watertown community. Durant came to Watertown in 1957 when a
25,000 square foot facility was erected on Twelfth Street, on land acquired
from the then Watertown Association of Commerce Promotive
Corporation. Burt Sweitzer
was one of a small group of Durant engineers and managers transferred from
Milwaukee to open the Watertown plant in 1957.
The company expanded its facility in 1961, 1963, 1969, 1974, 1978 and
1979. Today [1982] the Durant operation boasts 138,000 square feet.
1959
Watertown Daily Times, 11 04 1959
The Durant Manufacturing Company has purchased a little over six acres of
land immediately to the south of its plant on South Twelfth Street, it is
announced by officials of the Watertown Association of Commerce Promotive Corporation from whom the land was acquired. Acreage obtained is part of a 20 acre plot
which the promotive corporation acquired a number of
years ago so that fine industrial sites would be immediately available to
industries interested in locating in Watertown.
1960
Watertown Daily Times, 11 26 1960
The plant facilities of the Durant Manufacturing will be more than
doubled with the construction of an addition of 31,500 square feet, it was
announced by William Winkler, Milwaukee, president of the firm. The plant is located at South Twelfth and
Clark Streets. Cost of the addition will
be approximately $280,000. The local branch
plant of the Milwaukee firm was completed early in 1957. It contains 25,000 square feet of floor
space.
1961
Watertown Daily
Times, 10 01 1961
In line with the
company’s recent move of its manufacturing operations to a new plant in
Watertown, Durant Manufacturing Company today announced a major personnel
change within its organization. Willard
H. Brown, formerly plant manager of the Milwaukee factory, has been appointed
manager of manufacturing, supervising the company’s entire manufacturing operation
now located in Watertown. Mr. Brown
joined Durant in 1956 as plant manager of the Milwaukee factory. He is a graduate mechanical engineer from the
University of Wisconsin (1946) and came to Durant from the Midland Company of
South Milwaukee, where he had been vice president in charge of manufacturing.
1983
Watertown Daily Times, 11 10 1983
Eaton Corporation's
announcement late last week that it was considering consolidations which could
result in the loss of 550 jobs will not affect its plant in Watertown. Durant Digital Instruments, located at 901
South Twelfth Street, Watertown, will not be affected, Jerald Theder, Watertown, district director of Eaton, told the Daily Times. Theder said,
“Business at the Watertown plant has been excellent this year, and we are
looking for another excellent year in 1984.”
1984
Watertown Daily Times, 06 10 1984
Jerald J. Theder, general manager
of Eaton Logic and Communications Products Division, is returning to the board
of directors of M&I Bank of Watertown, according to announcement today by
Gerald Flynn, president of the bank. Theder served on the board of directors in 1975 and 1976
before accepting a new position with Cutler-Hammer company,
then owner of Durant Digital Instruments in Watertown. That new position took him to Cleveland,
Tenn. He succeeds E. James Quirk as a
member of the board. Quirk, retired
chairman of the board and president of Brandt, Inc., left the bank’s board of
directors last October.
Durants / Eaton Corp
Eaton Counts on its Workers
Employee participation is firm’s key to success
Watertown Daily Times, 08 03 1987
A veteran of 108 years, the Durant division of Eaton Corporation
has used some of the same principals of the original Durant Company to compete
successfully in today's tough international market.
Whether its 1987 or 1879, a
successful business is one that can satisfy the needs of its customer.
According to Jerald J. Theder, manager of Eaton's
automation products division, Durant has turned its fortunes around in the
1980s by doing just that.
"Durant also was a company that focused on
serving the needs of the customer where the needs were a little bit out of the
ordinary," said Theder, who manages plants in
Watertown and Riverton, Wyo.
Eaton-Durant has become one "of the leading
manufacturers of counting devices in the world by doing top-level work in
satisfying customers. The company has
kept its original focus on serving its customers while, at the same time,
dramatically changing its product lines.
The mechanical counter that founder W.N. Durant first
sold in 1879 to the Milwaukee Rolling Mill to count bags of flour is a far cry
from the electronic devices used to measure the flow of chocolate chips in a
cookie factory today.
Eaton-Durant today makes electronic and
electromechanical counters for a wide range of applications. The company will also custom make counting devices on demand.
Theder said
the company's recent success stems from a structural reorganization at
Eaton-Durant about three years ago, a change that transformed the company from
a rigid manufacturing firm to a flexible company that can adapt minute by
minute.
That change has made the Watertown firm more
responsive to customers' needs, better able to solve problems and provide
service, he said.
Eaton-Durant has become more flexible by giving its
employees more say about their working conditions and, at the same time, more
responsibility.
For example, the company has enacted a gain sharing
plan in place of the piecework incentives used previously. After the division
reaches the goals set in its profit plan, any additional profits are divided
equally among employees.
All employees are paid on a salary basis rather than
an hourly wage. Everybody also receives the same fringe benefit pack-age. And top executives don't receive any special
perks. For example, no one has an assigned spot in the Eaton parking lot. Workers also have greater input in running
the plant.
Every department, depending upon the number of people
who work there, receives a certain number of delegates. Those representatives
meet to discuss company plans and make decisions. As a result, workers feel more important and
have more incentive to provide quality work. In the past, Eaton-Durant employed
about 40 product inspectors but now no longer needs them.
The new emphasis has made Eaton-Durant more competitive
in a tough world market. After a peak of about 500 employees at the end of the
1970s, the Watertown plant laid off a number of
employees but has rebounded to about 300 workers today.
In this country, Eaton-Durant is one of two top
manufacturers of counter equipment, along with Veederroot
Co. of Hartford, Conn. In fact, those two companies are the only two still
operating in 1987 that were listed in a register of counter manufacturers from
1905-06.
Durant was founded by W. N. Durant in Milwaukee to
meet a growing need for counting devices. Starting with the flour bag counter,
the company developed counting devices to be used with a wide range of new and
more complicated industrial machines.
The technological explosion which followed World War II
increased the demand for smaller and more sophisticated counting instruments,
leading Durant to explore new areas of count-control equipment.
In 1958, Durant introduced a complete family of
high-speed counters for use as digital readout indicators in military and
industrial instrumentation. In 1964, the company developed a line of new
electro-mechanical counters.
The biggest change came in 1969 with the advent of
solid-state electronic counting equipment. Immune to electrical noise, the
solid state systems were much more sophisticated than the previous models and
could work in environments and at speeds not possible with the older product
lines.
Eaton is the leading producer of totalizing counters
for gasoline pumps. The firm also makes mechanical odometer clusters for trucks
and off-road vehicles.
"The mechanical counter lives on and it always
will because it is the lowest cost measuring device that we or anybody else in
the world knows how to build," Theder said.
But, Eaton-Durant is on the cutting edge of the new
technology in counter equipment as well. Electronic flow meters are made for a
wide variety of applications, from measuring crude oil to regulating conveyor
belts for bread ovens.
A relatively new field Eaton is entering involves
devices to monitor quality control in manufacturing. Currently, Eaton-Durant
makes equipment used in the automotive industry to monitor the assembly of car
engines. The device provides information about critical joints in the motor and
the stress on bolts, for example.
The Durant Company started its Watertown plant in 1956
with a pilot program, assisted by the Watertown Area Chamber of Commerce. The
plant was located at its current site at Twelfth and Clark streets, starting
with 25,000 square feet.
Eventually, through a number of expansions, the
Watertown facility has grown to 125,000 square feet.
In 1972, Durant expanded its office space in Watertown
and eventually moved its executive and sales offices from Milwaukee,
consolidating its operations here.
The firm has experienced several changes in ownership
over the years, starting in 1968 when Cutler-Hammer purchased the business.
Eaton took over for Cutler-Hammer in 1979.
Eaton, a worldwide manufacturer of advanced-technology
products for automotive, electronics, defense and capital goods markets,
employs 43,400 workers in 140 facilities in 20 countries. In 1986, the company
had sales totaling $3.8 billion.
