S&H Products, Inc. designs and manufactures premium-grade firefighting equipment, including fire hose nozzles, wye valves, shut-off valves, wildland hose clamps, and other related products.
Background
S&H Products has manufactured and sold fire hose nozzles, valves and accessories to firefighting agencies for 21 years. The company supplements their primary revenue earner, wild fire fighting products, with fabrication of products for “structure” or urban firefighting. Being a small family-owned business, industry trends and challenges can affect S&H Products more severely than larger companies with more resources.
Situation
In S&H’s industry, intense global competition is exacerbated by domestic producers’ inability to adequately increase prices to compensate for significantly rising business costs. Purchasers can source castings from lower-cost foreign producers and often have pricing leverage in the market. S&H has turned to innovation to meet this challenge: innovation of processes, making them leaner and more efficient; and innovation of products to access a larger market share.
Solution
Steve Larson, owner of S&H Products, was referred to the Rocky Mountain Trade Adjustment Assistance Center by the Arvada Economic Development Association. S&H Products took full advantage of the TAA for Firms program to assist in the design, prototype and patenting of a new product designed specifically for structure firefighting.
A firefighter must usually depend on a co-firefighter at the fire truck or the hydrant to control the flow, force and distance of the water from the fire hose. With S&H’s innovative nozzle product, a firefighter can vary all three of these qualities at the nozzle, providing the capacity for quicker reactions and more effective firefighting. S&H believes that this product will help them capture a larger market share of the structure firefighting industry, diversifying their revenue sources, and strengthening their ability to adapt to market challenges.
