Banker Wire, the world’s leading manufacturer of woven and welded wire mesh for architectural and industrial applications, has moved its operations into a 182,000-square-foot headquarters. This state-of-the-art facility is located in the Bear Industrial Park in Mukwonago, Wisconsin—at the connection point between Milwaukee and Beloit along I-43 and Highway 83—and houses all of Banker Wire’s 150 employees and manufacturing equipment.
Previously located at a 152,000-square-foot facility about two miles away, the new manufacturing plant and corporate office were newly built allowing Banker Wire to custom design the overall layout to enhance the work environment for employees, expand production capacity, and improve manufacturing efficiency.
“As our company has grown and evolved, we reached a point where we had to decide whether we should add on to our previous facility or build a new one,” said Dave Stout, President of Banker Wire. “We decided to push forward into a new facility, which I believe is now the best, most efficient wire mesh manufacturing location in the world. The facility has provided an incredible foundation for our company’s continued growth.”
Banker Wire selected Briohn, a full-service design/build construction company, to oversee the design and construction of its new facility. Banker Wire’s vision for a state-of-the-art facility resulted in numerous features including an employee wellness center, as well as expansive gathering spaces equipped with media displays for company-wide meetings and employee training programs. The addition of a sample room gives architects, designers and other clients a prime space to view hundreds of samples and various finishes. Another key feature—and improvement from the previous facility—is the installation of an air circulation system that maintains cleaner and cooler air.
As a powerhouse manufacturing entity with scalable operations in place, the layout of Banker Wire’s new facility better supports the entire process of accepting raw material, processing the raw material into a finished product, and finally shipping the finished product to customers. Most importantly, the space can adapt and smoothly transition between running projects as small as one-square-foot to large-scale orders upward of 150,000-square-feet of mesh. Customers can rest assured that every mesh job is manufactured according to the specifications of each individual order.
Established in 1896, Banker Wire has an extensive history in the greater Milwaukee area. The company initially flourished as a metal fabricator and by the mid-1970s, changing times and new ownership transitioned the business from a reselling operation to a manufacturer. Today, Banker Wire has emerged as the expert manufacturing source for pre-crimped woven and welded wire mesh following several decades of developing new processes and designing new equipment.
The company’s background in the precise manufacturing of mesh for industrial applications—such as agricultural, transportation and food processing sectors that require machine guards, water screens, ventilation, security, separation, filtration and more—provided a solid foundation to build on when wire mesh gained popularity in the early 2000s for architectural uses. On the architectural side, Banker Wire offers over 8,000 patterns of woven wire mesh as well as a selection of ornamental welded wire mesh in all alloys and finishes, making it ideal for both interior and exterior applications such as parking garages, millwork, and cladding, to space dividers, displays, and enclosures. For more information visit www.bankerwire.com.