Last year was a big
year for Swan–The Watering Company.
Not only did we debut a brand-new website, we greatly expanded our
manufacturing plant in Waco, Texas, to better serve our customers and our
community.
Swan purchased the
Waco manufacturing plant at 700 Jewell Drive in 1986. It was 103,000 square
feet of space and primarily responsible for garden hose manufacturing. While
the plant served the manufacturing aspect of our business well, it didn’t have
the space needed to warehouse the raw materials to make our products, as well
as the finished goods once manufactured. The limited amount of space also
forced us to hire more temporary workers rather than permanent employees.
Fast-forward to Sept.
20, 2018: Swan broke ground on a 300,000 square foot expansion. The additional square
footage was allocated to two large warehouses that essentially bookend the
existing manufacturing plant—one for raw materials; the other, for finished
goods. Both of these new warehouses opened in September 2019, expanding our
Waco facility to a total of approximately 400,000 square feet.
This new layout maximizes
Swan’s flow-through manufacturing efforts. Now raw materials can be stored in
the new warehouse on one end and brought into the original plant as needed where
they’re manufactured into our garden hoses. The finished garden hoses are then
moved into the new warehouse on the other end where they’re stored for trucks
to load and deliver to our various sales outlets. Currently, these include
stores across the United States and Canada including Ace Hardware, The Home
Depot, True Value and Walmart, as well as most regional hardware chains.
Bringing all aspects
of our manufacturing process under one roof gives Swan a quicker time to market
for our customers, especially during our busy season and periods of extreme
heat and weather. The expansion also allows us to create more quality, local
jobs in Waco, something we’re especially proud of.
Prior to the
expansion, Swan needed to employ temporary workers during our busy season, but
then had to let many of them go during our off-season. This new warehousing
space now allows us to shift temporary workers into roles in our warehouses
during the off-season, which dramatically increases our permanent full-time employee
base while relying less on temporary workers. Swan projects the expansion will
create 60 new permanent positions in Waco by 2021!
Headquartered in
Atlanta, Swan also has another strategically located manufacturing plant in
Sparks, Nevada, where it manufactures and warehouses garden hoses. Our expanded
plant in Waco now falls in line with our Sparks manufacturing plant.
Keep checking back
with our blog to find out other exciting developments happening at Swan this
year. We’re soon to debut our new SoftTOUCH garden hose!
The SoftTOUCH PVC
garden hose is appropriately named because it has the look and feel of rubber, so
it’s soft to the touch and easy to hold as you do your watering tasks. It also
showcases two new features: Swan’s SpinMALE technology and Ergonomic Female
Grip. SpinMALE Technology causes the male coupling to spin so you can attach
watering accessories such as nozzles without turning the hose! The Ergonomic
Female Grip turns with the female coupling to allow for an easy and tight
attachment to the water source.
