Kent eyes future with expansion

Question: What do the growing cost of labor in China and electronic-mobility bikes have in common?

Answer: They both will play a part in area economic development success in 2019.

Arnold Kamler, chairman and chief executive officer of major bicycle importer and manufacturer Kent International, spoke last week on the reasons behind his company's recent decision to expand its operations in Clarendon County.

On Dec. 10, Kent announced its subsidiary, Bicycle Corporation of America based in Manning, has outgrown its current facility and will be expanding this year and adding 65 jobs just down the road at a facility in Summerton.

BCA currently has about 140 employees at its Manning operation and produces about 320,000 bicycles a year of various product lines for Walmart stores and Amazon.

It's a participant in Walmart's Made in U.S.A. initiative, and BCA is the largest bicycle manufacturer by far in the United States, Kamler said.

There are several smaller U.S. companies that make 5,000 to 10,000 bicycles per year, he said, but none of Kent's major U.S. competitors have decided to establish operations here, preferring instead to buy and import bikes in from China and other Asian countries with lower-cost labor.

Kamler said he thinks most of Kent's competitors are short-sighted, looking at most only 12 to 18 months down the road.

Kent is looking five to 10 years into the future with manufacturing, he said.

"It's a long-term play," Kamler said. "Even without talk on tariffs, the cost of doing business in China and Asia is going up at a really high rate. It's growing at a much higher rate than it's growing in the United States."

Many cost variables are cheaper in the U.S. now, including land and power, and the gap in the cost of labor is narrowing every year, he said.

So much so that within a couple years, Kamler said he thinks Kent will be able to produce bicycles in Manning at almost the same cost as China, provided it can continue to add more and more technology here.

"The gap in labor costs is narrowing to the point where it's up to us to make the difference even smaller just by adding more and more technology to increase productivity here and make costs here more competitive," he said.

Kamler said his company has been very pleased with the workforce in Clarendon.

The 65-job expansion in Summerton will actually feature two new bicycle lines: an electric-mobility bike (aka "pedal assist bike" or "e-bike") with a lithium battery and a tricycle for physically challenged children and adults.

Kamler described the e-bike as a "bike with extra power" with the battery and said that almost 100 percent of people who test ride it either buy it or want to buy it. He said it makes older adults "feel like you're 10 years old again."

The way the bike works is this, Kamler said: "When you start pedaling - even at just 3 or 4 miles per hour - then you will start to feel the motor kick in, and it will assist you all the way up to 20 miles per hour. Then, after that, you're on your own. But, 20 miles per hour is pretty fast. It's just a lot of fun."

The bike is ideal, he said, for a husband and wife, if - for example - the husband is an advanced rider and the wife is not. Then, she can keep up with him.

Pedal assist bike sales have taken off in Europe in the last decade, Kamler said, and Kent forecasts sales will do the same in the next decade in the U.S.

"It's going to be big," he said.

The bikes aren't cheap, however. A base model is about $700 and goes up into the thousands, Kamler said.

The e-mobility, pedal assist bike is not to be confused with motorized e-scooters, which people can rent now in big cities. The e-scooter doesn't have pedals, and Kamler said he thinks they may begin to be outlawed within a couple years because of all the injuries that have occurred on them.

BCA's Summerton facility will be the former Federal Mogul plant. The company will begin construction enhancements to the facility this month. After that, hiring will begin in the second quarter and continue through July and August, according to George Kosinski, executive director of the Clarendon County Development Board.

DID YOU KNOW?

BCA in Manning is the only supplier of U.S.-made bicycles to Walmart stores across the U.S. All American-made bikes sold in any of Walmart's 4,000 stores in the U.S. were made in Manning, according to Kent International Chairman and CEO Arnold Kamler.