Lawn & Landscape magazine recently was given an exclusive inside look at how Turf Care Supply manufactures LESCO products at its Martins Ferry, Ohio, plant.
The factory, which employs 130 workers and 30 supervisors, runs virtually 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Much of the TCS facility's operations are based on the production of fertilizer using raw urea, which itself is produced by combing ammonia and carbon dioxide.
Raw urea comes to the facility in three sizes, which are used depending on the application of the finished fertilizer product. For example, a golf course would use a smaller-diameter urea. The plant process coats the urea with sulphur and that combination is bound together with a polymer before the other fertilizer ingredients are mixed in.
Because the urea is coated with sulphur and sealed with a polymer, it becomes a slow-release material. The thickness of the sulphur coating will determine how quickly the nitrogen is released.
TCS maintains an in-house laboratory where samples of all products about to leave the facility are collected and tested. If a question should arise about a product after it has been sold, laboratory experts can review those samples to determine if there's a potential problem with the product.
TCS operates under a long-term agreement with Lesco to supply products to the Cleveland-based company. The assets of TCS were previously owned by Lesco, which sold them to an equity firm that created TCS. TCS also has facilities in Hatfield and Westfield, Mass.; Brunswick, Ohio; Lawrenceville, Ga.; Sebring, Fla., and Silverton, Ore.
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