This year Volt Industrial Plastics (VIP), based in West Yellville, Arkansas, is celebrating 25 years of providing high-quality products and customer service excellence – focusing on precision plastic fasteners that can help customers reduce the weight, cost and assembling complexities of their products.
Joe Volltrauer founded Volt Industrial Plastics in Yellville, Arkansas in 1992. Since then, Volt has become an industry leader in industrial fastener production, producing fasteners for multiple industries nationally and worldwide. The company credits its success to hard work, dedication to innovation, and unbeatable customer service.
Expert in plastics
Precision non-metallic fasteners like those produced at VIP offer significant advantages to customers. The versatile polymers used are light weight, non-magnetic, non-corrosive, non-toxic, non-flammable, non-abrasive, non-conducting and include heat resistant properties - making them invaluable for applications where high tensile holding strength is not the primary requirement.
In addition, these characteristics may be further enhanced by chemical and fibre additions to increase strength, hardness, flexibility, temperature and UV resistance, making plastics an attractive alternative.
Manufacturing excellence
VIP manufactures a wide variety of screws, nuts, clips, rivets, dowels, washers, spacers and many other fasteners. Its state-of-the-art production equipment enables it to produce any quantity quickly and efficiently. The company also has the capability of moulding over 120 different materials and is able to colour match for specific applications.
Thanks to its skilled employees VIP can efficiently produce custom fastener shapes in a wide range of materials to achieve specific ductility or hardness. Plus, highly unique materials have added an entirely new dimension to creating and designing plastic components. This includes plastics that glow, exhibit rich colour, feel soft or give off pleasing scents.
Quality control
Whether customers need a small or large number of fasteners, VIP takes great care with each and every order to ensure customers receive a quality fastener in a timely - and affordable - manner. During its thorough quality control process, tool makers with vast industry experience, review every customer order beforehand and all new, repaired or modified tooling are inspected and approved before installing it for a production run Once the parts are produced, they're checked by hand to ensure only the highest quality pieces are shipped – helping to avoid mould flashing or mismatched parting lines.
Volt’s success
Customer service lies at the heart of everything Volt does, with technological evolution and innovation also taking cues from customers. By listening to what its customers need and want, the company can adapt its product lines and buying processes. Volt is proud to keep all production in-house and all ‘American-made’, which gives it complete control over what products it sells and how fast it can get them out to customers. With over 100 million parts in stock available for same day shipping, Volt has been able to adapt to changing customer needs over the years and plans to continue to adapt for the future.
Company challenges
The largest challenge is finding employees that share the same mindset that Volt was infused with from its start. Of its 65 employees, 20 of them have been there over 10 years. For Volt, it’s more than just training someone to do the job, it’s keeping the people with experience who can add value to the company and to customers.
What’s next for Volt?
Volt’s priority moving forward is to continue to evolve and grow. New product lines, online purchasing capabilities, and continued dedication to customer service and communication are all key aspects of its long-term plans for the future.
Will joined Fastener + Fixing Magazine in 2007 and over the last 12 years has experienced every facet of the fastener sector – interviewing key figures within the industry and visiting leading companies and exhibitions around the globe. Will manages the content strategy across all platforms and is the guardian for the high editorial standards that the brand is renowned.
