Hascall Steel Company gets the job done! As far as mid-sized steel service centers are concerned, few can outperform the team at Hascall Steel in the area of quality, delivery, or material availability.
~
Established in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1971 by Wayne Hascall, this full-service flat-rolled steel service center has grown significantly yet maintains the family-owned and operated atmosphere and attitudes. Its unique culture has helped it experience success over the years. Now under its second generation of leadership by Wayne’s son Dag, Hascall Steel has provides the highest standards of quality products and customer service.
Originally providing steel sheet to the furniture industry, Wayne and his two sons, Dag and Karl, initially performed all of the company’s operations from purchasing and receiving to packaging and delivering products. In its early years, Hascall Steel operated out of rented spaces, securing time on the shears of local steel service centers on nights and weekends when the production floor was available. In the early 1980s, Hascall Steel obtained its very own facility in downtown Grand Rapids, enabling the company to expand its services to include slitting.
In the late 1980s, Hascall Steel relocated to a 150,000 square foot plant at its current corporate headquarters in Grandville, Michigan. The company continued to grow into the 1990s, building a reputation for excellent customer service, a willingness to adapt quickly to customer’s needs, a large and diverse inventory and an approach to business based on integrity and honesty.
Already heavily involved in the family business, brothers Dag and Karl Hascall purchased the company from their father Wayne in 1994. The two ushered in a new era of growth and prosperity for Hascall Steel by expanding the capacities and productivity with the establishment of substantial production facilities in Detroit, Michigan and Nashville Tennessee.
“We’ve been able to make different acquisitions, both in facilities and equipment, and get into different areas to continue growing, developing relationships with suppliers and our internal people,” described Dave Greichunos, vice president of Hascall Steel.
Greichunos acknowledges the tremendous contribution of the company’s employees to its growth and success. “If it weren’t for the people that work here and their hearts and their attitudes, we would not be as successful as we are,” he said, citing their involvement from the order to the invoice. “The people are key.”
“Our team members at Hascall Steel do not require micromanaging in order to keep productivity levels high and the work culture positive. This conveys a sense of pride in workmanship and output into each employee, with the realization that each person has a role to play in the company’s success,” as the company says of its leadership style.
Each and every day, the staff at Hascall Steel, in each of the four locations, are fielding customer inquiries and bringing a diverse variety of widths and thicknesses of high-quality flat-rolled steel coils, sheets and blanks to customers.
Hascall Steel consistently provides raw materials to Midwestern manufacturing powerhouses. As a testament to the company’s diversity of applications, the industries served include: automotive manufacturing, construction, office furniture, agricultural implements, lawn and garden, rack and shelving and heavy truck industries. Hascall Steel Company carries a very wide variety of flat rolled products including hot rolled, pickled and oiled, cold rolled, galvanized, electro-galvanized, galvannealed, aluminized and galvalume. All of these are available in a variety of grades and gauges.
Hascall Steel also provides “in-house” materials testing, (A2LA Accredited) via its close working relationship with Steel Testing Laboratory, an independently owned and operated test facility located at Hascall’s Detroit, Strong Street location. This allows the Hascall team to satisfy PPAP requirements efficiently and effectively.
“We execute,” stated Greichunos. “The execution of us doing what we say we are going to do is probably one of our strongest assets.” Hascall Steel meets deadlines, however demanding they may be, and does so with short lead times and for the quoted price. Hascall Steel offers same day or next day delivery within a two hundred mile radius of its locations. It guarantees customers expedited service when necessary and finds innovative solutions to any problems that may arise. Part of that formula is the dedicated fleet of company owned delivery vehicles that gives Hascall Steel a nimble advantage over outsourcing its deliveries through common carriers.
Hascall Steel’s focus on building relationships with its customers affords it the opportunity to develop repeat business and reinforce its reputation for a job well done. In addition, its willingness to work with suppliers enables it to get the best available pricing.
Hascall Steel’s customer testimonials not only pay tribute to the work being done, but the dependability of its customer support and its diverse flat-rolled steel inventory and associated services.
“Hascall Steel has been a very integral part of our success. With the combination of excellent customer service, exceptional pricing and second to none delivery and turn around, Hascall Steel helps us compete in an aggressive, dynamic and competitive metals market,” wrote J.B. of Multi National Steel Service Center.
Hascall Steel strives to keep a general, yet lean, inventory base at each of its four locations that represents a good mix of product and meets the demands of the local markets. The company has developed a proprietary system to analyze data related to sales history and sales forecasting to determine optimal inventory levels that will allow it to remain both competitive and profitable.
“We’ve really focused on targeting our inventory to be in the right facility at the right time for our customer base,” Greichunos explained. “We’ve used internal systems and processes to make sure that the inventory we’re purchasing is going to be in the right facility to try to eliminate any excessive transportation or processes, based upon our equipment and capabilities at certain facilities.”
Earlier this summer the company invested into its Nashville facility with the addition of a high speed leveling line. “We are very excited about our recent ‘high speed’ equipment improvements which are giving us greater precision at increased production speeds. We are anticipating additional equipment upgrades to streamline production activities.”
“It’s been a difficult market,” Greichunos shared. “A short term goal is to continue working off a leaner inventory and making sure that the correct material is in the right facility and not looking at excessive costs to move things around.” The goal ensures that customers are able to get the best value to help them remain competitive in their respective markets. “In addition, we serve our customers best when we partner in creative steel applications, seeking out a more competitive gauge range or intrinsic characteristic that may produce the part in a more economical way while maintaining design integrity. We encourage our customers to engage us as material experts, allow them to use our 45 years of experience to their advantage!”
In terms of future growth, Hascall Steel is planning to expand its commercial department, opening up new markets in Ohio and Indiana as well as new market niches. Hascall Steel has remained profitable, finding ways to increase efficiency and continuing to grow, even though the condition of the metals market and prices leave much to be desired.
“I’ve worked at a few other steel service centers in my career and the family atmosphere, the family business, and the caring by the family is just phenomenal. You are a not a number; you are a person,” Greichunos recounted. The positive work environment and employee culture that has been created at Hascall Steel translates to the customer experience.
It is this integrity and commitment to forging relationships with its employees, customers and suppliers that has helped it secure a place for itself in a very competitive market. The quality, in terms of inventory and customer service, helps it to uphold the reputation it has established as a company that executes, each and every time.
In a business that rides the ups and downs of the underlying steel product, Hascall Steel Company absolutely differentiates itself through customer engagement and satisfaction!
