News
Dover Exec Dishes on New Pearland Manufacturing Plans
Molly Ryan, Reporter, Houston Business Journal
Dover Corp.’s (NYSE: DOV) energy division just broke ground on a new 150,000-square-foot manufacturing and office building in Pearland.
Frank Wierengo is president of Cook Compression, which is one of many of Dover’s businesses moving into the Pearland space. He broke down the details for us about what exactly will happen at the new location.
Illinois-based Dover operates a variety of manufacturing brands throughout the world. The company’s energy division operates numerous facilities throughout Texas, and the new Pearland space is designed to consolidate some of them at one site to increase efficiency.
Normally, the term “consolidation” in manufacturing is associated with layoffs. However, Wierengo explained this is not the case with Dover.
Dover Energy is consolidating three existing Cook Compression facilities now in Stafford, Pearland and Breckenridge, Texas; an existing Bearings Plus facility now in south Houston; and a completely new OPW Midland facility.
Cook Compression will manufacture and repair a variety of compressor components, such as valves and sealing products, at the facility. Meanwhile, at the same Pearland facility, Bearings Plus will mainly work on refurbishing bearings systems and OPW will mainly work on refurbishing and repairing valves. All three of the businesses will predominantly serve the oil and gas industry.
The new Pearland location will initially have close to 200 employees, which Wierengo said is the number of employees the separate facilities have now. However, in the future, Dover hopes to grow the Pearland operations, he said. Not only can the companies add more manufacturing shifts to increase work, but they can also expand the facility onto the 14 acres of land the facility sits on.
By having multiple businesses in one facility, Wierengo said the companies will be able to increase efficiencies by sharing shipping, receiving and material handling functions. The companies are also looking into sharing workers “to collaborate to the highest extent possible,” he added.
Dover is banking on growing the Pearland facility due to the strength of the oil and gas industry, Wierengo said.
Furthermore, for some more insight as to why Dover chose Pearland, city of Pearland documents from December reveal that the city granted a tax abatement agreement to Dover and the city approved a loan agreement between the Pearland Economic Development Corp. and Dover.
