What started as a small construction business in 1952, has grown to a multisector corporation spread across the entire state of North Carolina.
Today, S.T. Wooten owns 17 batch plants, but the expansion has not stopped there. Along the way, the producer has added highway work, asphalt paving, bridges, and utilities to it's list of services. They own an additional 10 asphalt plants.
“Customers trust S.T. Wooten to provide ready-mix concrete and asphalt, in addition to heavy highway, design-build and commercial site work. With over 900 employees, we have a long history of serving the North Carolina Department of Transportation and brands across North Carolina and the surrounding area,” Vice President Jeff Radack said.
S.T. Wooten prides itself on being family-oriented.
“As a family-owned company, we also look to cultivate a team focus throughout the organization. This helps us keep a bigger-picture perspective when it comes to the work our crews do in the concrete division. By emphasizing learning, we aim to bring people along steadily and give them a chance to lead when the time is right,” Radack said.
The rapid growth of the company is due in large part to rewarding employee loyalty. The producer evaluates its training model annually to adapt to new technology and procedures.
“Our workers appreciate the opportunity to learn and grow, building on their strengths and finding opportunities for improvement. We’re proud to say more than half of our employees have been with the company at least five years and a third have worked here for 10 years or more,” Radack said.
The program Radack is most proud of is Wooten’s new Total Process Reliability (TPR) platform, which teaches employees how to improve machine reliability and efficiency before, during, and after operation.
“TPR really empowered our employees to take more ownership of inventory and maintenance control processes that support the business. The program offers more training opportunities in maintaining operator care for concrete-mixer trucks, which serves as another platform for concrete workers to learn and grow from within the company,” Radack said.
Both inventory and assets such as plants also undergo strict evaluation every three years to minimize inefficiency. The company credits these evaluation methods with keeping them steady during the 2008 recession.
“We are constantly strategically evaluating the efficiency of our plants to ensure we have the right facilities in the right locations, and that our people are in the right place. This summer, we installed a permanent plant in Jacksonville, N.C., to replace and free up a portable plant for use in another location. Moves like these provide us with ongoing efficiency to support business growth across our footprint,” Radack said.
S.T. Wooten prides itself on more than just innovative analytics. In terms of technology the company has used new programs and devices in order to cut down on communication errors. For example, all ready-mix trucks have GPS trackers which allows dispatchers to monitor time on the jobsite and eliminate time between jobs.
“This software allows us to oversee our traffic, learn from real data, and make changes to ensure our system is optimized to manage delivery,” Radack said.
With a booming construction sector in North Carolina, S.T. Wooten has seen several promising years of growth, but with prosperity comes new competitors.
“We are seeing an increase in competition. This helps us tighten up our focus on customer commitment and other differentiators,” Radack said.
