Genie’s President unveils strategies for future growth and fulfilling demand

“We’re very optimistic about the next couple years, especially in North America,” says Genie’s President Josh Gross. “We’re doing everything we can to build as much as possible, ramping up production in Monterrey and trying to make sure we deliver and pull in as much equipment to 2024 as we can for our customers.”

Despite improvements across the supply chain, and a slight easing of labor shortages for the company, Gross says today’s challenges aren’t much different than they were a year ago for the company.

Ryan Crow, left, Genie’s vice president of global product management, with Genie President Josh Gross. (Photo: KHL)

“It’s still the same thing largely,” Gross says. “So, for us, we’re still working with key suppliers as they try to catch up from Covid, and they’re pulling in their production and ramping up their capacity. You think about engines, you think about electronic components, you think about things like that. Those are the things that we’re still working on fine tuning, making sure we’ve got enough, trying to get as much as we can.”

Genie’s hope is that the company’s new manufacturing facility in Monterrey, Mexico will help ease some of Genie’s backlog, which currently stands at roughly $2.6 billion.

“Monterreyis continuing to ramp up, and more of the facilities coming online,” Gross says. “We’ve been continuing to invest and expand the facility.”

As Genie irons out the operational details of its Mexico plant, it also is keeping its eyes focused on the company’s current manufacturing around the globe, while “constantly looking and evolving” its footprint, according to Gross.

Currently, Genie’s plant in Italy supplies Europe and North America, amongst other regions, and Gross says, the company is looking to increase its telehandler manufacturing capacities there. As for its facility in China, Gross says, “operations [there] have been successful for a long time.”

“We continue to look at how we build the right models with the right configurations to export them to key markets or sell domestically where there’s demand,” he says.

Regarding product demand, Genie says it varies by region and customers.

“Certainly, in North America, there’s a lot of demand on all products, honestly,” he says. “And so, we’re trying to focus on all areas outside of North America. There’s over capacity potentially for some models and customers. So, they say, ‘Hey, I want to trade out booms for scissors, I want to trade out verticals for this.’ So, we’re trying to be flexible with everybody and mix and match and move things around. But it varies quite a bit. I mean, we’re not seeing one specific spike anywhere over the other at this point. We’re trying to ramp up everything as much as we can.”

As Genie gets up to speed with providing the right equipment to the right places, it’s also facing increased competition from new manufacturers. When asked how Genie plans to compete against these players, Gross says it all comes down to one thing: value.

“What our value is, is the top quality products and best total cost of ownership,” Gross says. “We’re prepared to go head-to-head and be strong competitors to anybody in the world.”

For more with Genie, see Access International’s latest issue or visit www.accessbriefing.com.