Lott Industries is focusing on diversifying its products and services to ensure continued employment of developmentally and physically disabled people.

“We’re always looking for new opportunities to provide work for our employees,” said Joan Uhl Browne, president of Lott Industries, a nonprofit organization. “We can do anything for anybody anywhere with our facilities and dedicated work force.”

Lott Industries has adopted the theme “Can do* … a Lott for your business and a Lott for our community.”

Lott employs from 900 to 1,200 developmentally and physically disabled workers at three production facilities in Lucas County. It has worked with companies of all sizes from the Big Three automakers to small businesses needing to supplement their work force.

President Joan Uhl Browne supervises Jeff Schmenk as he works.

Lott Industries served the automotive industry as a tier one supplier to Ford Motor Company for 26 years with an on-time and quality rate of 99.9 percent. In 2006, 75 percent of its revenue of $7 million came from its work for Ford.

Almost 80 percent of that work disappeared as it lost seven contracts when Ford closed the Maumee stamping plant in 2007. The overall parts business has decreased by 50 percent in recent years, Browne said.

Lott recently acquired new contracts for assembling 20-plus parts for a Honda supplier that kept 80 to 100 employees working.

Lott now offers digital imaging, electronic billing, dunnage, document and information destruction services, recycling of books and X-ray films, as well as making new “green” products.

Lott’s workers cut off book covers and sort them by paper grade for shipment to sources that use them by those grades. X-ray films are shredded and shipped to sources that reclaim the silver contained in them.

Dunnage services include assembling, sorting, inspecting, packaging, labeling and shipping products for domestic and foreign companies. Lott has the resources to inspect and package as many as 50,000 parts in three days, said Browne.

Lott recently inspected a shipment of items from China for the United Service Organization to send to U.S. troops overseas, Browne said.

Reliable work force

For 20 years, Lott has provided compliant destruction of documents and multimedia information for local sources with pickup service within a 100-mile radius. It is certified by the National Association for Information Destruction.

Lott has developed numerous partnerships with local academic and business sources to create new opportunities for its workers.

The Center for Innovative Food Technology presented Lott with an idea for producing bio-preferred products made from renewable agricultural and biological materials from animal, plant and marine sources.

Lott manufactures and sells environmentally friendly cleaning products, such as a multipurpose degreaser, glass and hard surface cleaner, foaming hand cleanser and cream cleanser.

The cleaning products were approved for general distribution contracts by the State of Ohio office of procurement Nov. 13, making them available to government agencies, offices and state universities.

Students from UT’s College of Engineering worked on a senior design project at Lott this year. They developed a fireplace brick made from recycled fiber and bio-materials that will be packaged and sold in the future, Browne said.

Making news

Lott also has about 120 persons on 14 mobile crews working on site for several local clients, including 15 contract workers doing digital imaging for electronic records at the Lucas County Clerk of Courts office.

“They are great people doing quality work in high-tech jobs for us,” said Bernie Quilter, clerk of courts.

Quilter said the court originally hired one person from Lott to do image prepping work to save money. When the county established its imaging lab, it went back to Lott for additional qualified workers and trained them to work on computers and scanners for digital imaging of court cases and records.

“Those workers have indexed and scanned about 20,000 documents and helped reduce the county’s storage costs,” Quilter said. “We’ve had visitors from other counties in Ohio, national and international companies such as Chase Bank visit our imaging operations to see the results of their work.”

“We’re re-inventing the work we can do to keep people employed. Lott has proven that people with developmental disabilities can be viable members of the work force,” said Lon Mitchell, manager of public affairs for the Lucas County Board of Developmental Disabilities.

The county provides professional support staff at Lott to train disabled people.

“We help place people in the community by coaching them, refining their job skills and helping them find employment inside and outside the organization,” Mitchell said.

In the past year, Lott opened a Shared Lives Studio where 10 to 12 regular artists and other contributors are making artwork, jewelry, greeting cards, notebooks and other products from recycled materials.

Lott will be a participant in the Heralding the Holidays event at the Toledo Botanical Garden Dec. 4 through Dec. 6 by selling products made in the Shared Lives Studio, Browne said.

“Joan is very creative at finding green ideas to generate additional work,” Mitchell said.

Lott Industries recently received national media coverage with an article published Nov. 28 in the Wall Street Journal. The reporter drove from Pittsburgh and spent a day with the people at Lott before writing the story, Browne said.

“We hope it may lead to some new business with national customers,” she said.

For more information, go to http://www.lottindustries.com/.

Tags: Lott Industries

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 9:49 pm and is filed under Technology, Toledo Business Link.
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