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Five Questions
InterWire Products, Inc.
F
ive Questions provides an opportunity for SMI associate members to tell the spring industry about their company and the products and services they offer. In this edition, we talk with Bruce Massey, senior vice president of InterWire Products, Inc.
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Can you tell us about InterWire and the products it offers to spring manufacturers?
InterWire was established in 1981 with the goal of providing wire consumers, like the spring industry, the highest quality wire available on a timely basis. As our customer base grew, we continued to add new locations to better service the ever-changing demands of the industry. Today we have six service centers in the U.S., one in Mexico and our corporate office is in Armonk, New York. All our locations are ISO 9001:2015 certified. We have always offered round, flat and shaped wires. Some of our standard materials include high carbon wires like music, hard drawn and oil tempered, but also low carbon wires, and various stainless and non-ferrous wires. Many of our materials are also offered with specialty coatings and finishes.
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What are the latest trends impacting wire distributors and what effect is it having on spring manufacturers? Unfortunately, the world finds itself dealing with the coronavirus pandemic and the negative impact it’s having on economies and businesses around the world. This crisis has also exposed just how fragile the global supply chain is for many industries, including the spring industry. InterWire has felt the impact directly and tapped into our large base of producers to help mediate the problem. One of our greatest strengths is the strong relationships we build with our mills. These relationships are what allow us to respond to our customer’s needs when unforeseen events occur.
resources to find it, develop it, and bring it to the market. To emphasize the point, I remember when I first started at InterWire, they said if someone gives you an inquiry for moon-rocks, you take it! We really mean it.
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What role does your company play in serving spring manufacturers?
We pride ourselves in working with customers to develop custom, specialty wire programs that are unique for their applications. We’re capable of doing this because we constantly seek out and bring in new qualified producers from around the world. It’s not unusual for us to have developed a custom program for one industry that we’re then able to introduce for a completely different application in another industry.
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Can you tell us about a recent challenge that you were able to solve for a customer?
Honestly, it seems like we face new challenges every day. One recent challenge had to do with a customer that unexpectedly lost a producer for one of their critical programs. Our customer was suddenly under incredible pressure to find a replacement provider capable of meeting their exacting specifications. Once the customer contacted us, we gathered every bit of information we could, and in a relatively short time, our team was able to quickly narrow down the best source to meet all the requirements. We had very good results with our trial process which gave us high confidence that we were on the way to a successful new program. n InterWire Products, Inc. 355 Main Street Armonk, NY 10504 Phone: 914-273-6633 or 800-699-6699 brucem@interwiregroup.com www.interwiregroup.com
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What type of services do you offer?
We see ourselves as a full-service supplier of wire and there’s not much that we won’t look for. We don’t like to limit ourselves to a pre-defined “basket of materials.” We like to use the hundreds of years combined experience of our group to bring as much value to the industry as possible. If there’s a wire being made, we will use our
Bruce Massey
SPRINGS / Summer 2020 / 55
