Twenty Years of Growth

On May 6, 2011, Creform Corporation celebrated 20 years of growth and success at its Greer, SC, headquarters. In addition to the company’s success over the past 20 years, it has been recognized as helping its customers establish and support continuous improvement and lean manufacturing programs while bringing new dimensions to the material handling industry.

Prior to 1991, Yazaki Industrial Chemical Co. was supplying its Creform System of plastic coated steel pipe and joints to Japanese U.S. transplants on a limited basis. These transplant companies were using Creform as a key component of their continuous improvement, lean manufacturing, Kaizen and 5s philosophies. Then, in 1991, Yazaki purchased Textube Corporation, Greer, SC and began marketing its Creform System to other U.S. manufacturers. This timing dovetailed well with U.S. manufacturer’s strong interest in embracing these Japanese philosophies.

In the ensuing years, Creform sold the Textube division to concentrate its efforts on marketing the Creform System.  In support of continued growth, a new building was constructed in Greer to accommodate pipe manufacturing and the engineering and sales departments. In addition, Creform Logis-tech Corporation in Wixom, MI was purchased while other regional offices were established, including Mexico, putting Creform closer to customers for enhanced support.  To support Europe, Creform Technik GmbH was established in Germany. These moves all contributed to Creform’s strong presence in the automotive industry and allowed the company to penetrate the aerospace, medical, electronics and healthcare markets, as well.

Creform has consistently introduced new products over these past two decades nearly doubling its cataloged product offerings.  Some of these include the unique 42mm pipe and joint system for heavy-duty applications, Placon® Wide Plastic Wheel Conveyors and a new concept in Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) that can manage entire fleets of carts.

Although Creform continuously strives to help its customers become more productive it also received industry and humanitarian recognition which included winning the J. Verne Smith Award for civic service in 2003 and a Boeing Gold Performance Excellence Award in 2009.