Let me start by asking a simple question. Have you ever played the game Whack-A-Mole? You know, where you try your best to hit the pesky rodent when he unexpectedly pops out of a random hole? Well, that is sort of what life has become at Lou-Rich trying to navigate supply chain issues, escalating raw

Some Challenges Behind and Some New Ones Ahead As we already find ourselves halfway through 2021, thankfully life at Lou-Rich has returned to a level of normalcy comparable to early 2020. While some of our covid restrictions remain, many of them have been lifted. Mask mandates are no longer in our facilities. Customer and supplier

Lou-Rich recently held several Business Review meetings with some of our customers and the feedback was quite interesting. Most of them are doing quite well and they are seeing increased demands driving up both short-term and long-term forecasts. The industries represented include power generation, medical equipment, heavy industrial equipment, foodservice equipment, agriculture, and casting companies.

Now that we are a couple months into the new year, one thing has become very apparent. Companies that are nimble and able to shift and change with customer and market demands will come out ahead. We are living in a world of shrinking visibility to forecasts, coupled with incredible fluctuations in raw material pricing

Strong Finish As I look back at my first month as General Manager, I do not have to look far to be reminded how strong of a team we have here at Lou-Rich. 2020 has sure thrown its fair share of curve balls at us with supply chain challenges, pulling out of customer orders, pulling

After an exhaustive search, Lou-Rich and its parent company Innovance, is pleased to announce that Lee Gulbrandson has been named General Manager of Lou-Rich effective today. Lee has been an important contributor to Lou-Rich’s success for many years. He began his career here working in production in April of 2002. He went on to Minnesota

Like virtually every other manufacturing business in our country, the rules for doing business continue to change and so we adapt and change right along with them. The one thing that never wavers is our commitment to the safety and well-being of our employee-owners. For that reason, we have greatly restricted visitors in our facilities,

August 2020 Business Update It appears the saying “the only constant thing in life is change”, it truer today than ever. The summer of 2020 has been a bit of a roller coaster in many ways for Lou-Rich. Our employee-owners have a done a great job of responding to the rapidly changing

In April I shared what we were doing to protect ourselves from the spread of COVID-19 and that we had seen minimal impact to our customers and orders were strong.  Well, things change.  We are seeing a slow down with our customers as orders are getting pushed out or in some instances even cancelled. 

WOW!  That is about the only way I can describe where we are today.  First off, let me thank our customers for their commitment to Lou-Rich.  We had great months for January, February and March. Thanks to our suppliers who helped us meet the needs of our customers.  Then we get into the whole