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Brazeway Corporate Headquarters in Adrian, MI
December 14, 2018
With over 800 employees, Brazeway operates from its headquarters in Adrian, Michigan, and three manufacturing facilities in Shelbyville, Indiana; Hopkinsville, Kentucky; and Cienega de Flores, Mexico. A third generation family company, led by Stephanie Hickman Boyse, the company has a strong legacy of innovation and manufacturing excellence. A Legacy of Innovation Brazeway was founded in 1946 to prove that tight tolerance aluminum tubing was a feasible and more compelling alternative to copper tubing in refrigeration applications. The company realized immediate commercial success, and over the coming decades Brazeway continued to push the boundaries of aluminum alloy tubing in heat exchange applications, ranging from novel evaporator designs to bespoke alloys and manufacturing processes. Most recently, Brazeway has successfully led the transition of indoor air conditioning coils from copper to aluminum. Today, Brazeway continues to make advances and create value for customers with the same spirit of continuous improvement and innovation that motivated its founding. In addition to its strong engineering and operating capabilities, Brazeway has demonstrated firm alignment with the values of Axel Johnson. Three generations of Hickman ownership have created a business culture wherein employees are regarded and treated as family, and where the company has maintained a commitment to supporting the communities in which its employees live and work. Partnering for a Stronger Future Stephanie Hickman Boyse, president of Brazeway said, “Finding a partner like Axel Johnson is rare, as they have a unique business model as well as shared values. It was critical to our family and management team that we assure the success and growth of Brazeway into future generations, carrying on the great tradition upon which this company was founded. We looked for a partner who will retain our culture and commitment to the communities we call home, who will offer opportunities for the growth of our people, who will share the philosophies of relationships and value creation for our customers and suppliers, and who has the financial strength to ensure the continued success and growth into the next generation of family ownership. We are excited to work with this great team and continue to grow Brazeway together.” “As an owner, we look for strong ideas, great people and culture, proven leadership, and the potential to grow and build a business for the long-term,” Axel Johnson President and CEO Mike Milligan said. “We invest in a company only when we are convinced that its leadership and employees also share our ownership values – where they remain enthusiastic about, and committed to, their company’s future and as yet unrealized potential. Where they are eager to pursue new ideas, take risks, and bring novel products and services to market. Where they believe that how they go about running their business, and the impact they have on their customers, trade partners and communities, is as important as the products they sell. We welcome Brazeway to the Axel Johnson family and very much look forward to all that we will accomplish together.”
Brazeway receives Electrolux Supplier Excellence Award
December 22, 2017
Stephanie Boyse and Mike Adams recently attended an Electrolux event and received this outstanding award on behalf of Brazeway. The announcement made when they accepted the award is as follows: “Brazeway, which has been doing business with Electrolux since 1990, wins this award due to their consistent track record as a strategic supplier to Electrolux NA. They were selected to participate in the Strategic Supplier Initiative (SSI) and have continuously led cost, quality and sustainability improvement activities. In addition, they were one of the first NA suppliers to receive approval to outsource refrigeration chamber testing to better utilize their labs and resources, which is a common testing bottleneck at our facilities. Lastly, Brazeway is the perfect example of early supplier engagement where they have provided consistent support to the cross functional team at Electrolux for new product development, including the evaporator design for Bronco at our Anderson Plant.” This award is a true testament of the culmination of everyone’s dedication and drive at Brazeway and something we all should be very proud of. Congratulations to all!
Brazeway Commitment to safety in manufacturing
April 12, 2017
Over the past several months a team of representatives from each Brazeway facility has been working on standardizing Brazeway’s overall 5S program and integrating it with our efforts to improve safety. BI hosted an event for this team to deploy several 5S+Safety practices that will be standardized across the organization. A big thank you to the BI facility for hosting this event and to everyone who helped the team – especially BI production team members Steve Eickleberry, Kyle Brochin, Shawn Sirk, and Charles Webb. What is 5S+Safety? The focus of 5S is to create a cleaner, more organized, and more effective work environment (5S = sort, straighten, shine, standardize, sustain). A work environment with these characteristics will naturally be a safer work environment. Additionally, the specific focus on Safety helps us to improve many of our safety visual controls (fire extinguishers, eye wash stations, electrical hazards, etc.) and specifically eliminate other identified safety concerns. Therefore, 5S+Safety is a fundamental tool used to create a SAFER, more EFFECTIVE, and CLEANER work environment.

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