Members of the Butler County Manufacturers Association (BCMA) donned hard hats and safety glasses Thursday afternoon for a tour of the HYSCO plant in Greenville.

Lige Clark, head of Human Resources and General Affairs and assistant general manager for the plant, led the group through the 180,000-square-foot facility.

HYSCO currently employs 49 workers, with an additional 10-15 more employees soon to be hired from the latest training class.

Whether it's stamped out or welded, if it comes from HYSCO, it's bound to be made out of steel.

Steel, Clark stressed, is the plant’s &uot;one and only commodity.&uot; The giant metal coils sighted by tour members in the plant, Clark said, originate in either Japan or Korea, and are shipped by truck to Greenville from the port of Mobile.

&uot;Once we get our rail spur completed, we’ll see a lot of our steel being shipped down here from the Great Lakes area,&uot; Clark said.

During the manufacturing process, the giant steel coils are transformed into master coils, slit coils, blanked steel sheets, sheared sheets and welded blanks to be used in the manufacture of Hyundai vehicles.

About 20 percent of HYSCO’s metal products go directly to the Hyundai plant in Hope Hull, Clark said.

The rest of their inventory is shipped to Hwashin, SMART in Luverne and Dong Wong Metals in Sardis. Clark said the plant currently averages about 14 loads of steel products shipped out daily.

&uot;Remember, all the steel you see on those new Hyundais driving down the road, actually came from Greenville, Alabama,&uot; Clark told the group.

Currently, the plant is operating six days a week with two 12-hour shifts per day.

Clark said the long shifts were just a &uot;temporary situation.&uot;

&uot;We do need to make some adjustments; we’re adding more people from the most recent training class and eventually, we will have the 100 people employed here that was projected,&uot; Clark said, adding, &uot;Everybody is working overtime right now. We don’t want to burn out our employees with these continued long days.&uot;

Tour members enjoyed the opportunity to see the plant’s giant robotic arms at work.

&uot;Those are pretty amazing – not the sort of thing

you see every day in Greenville,&uot; Susan Murphy said.

Following the tour, BCMA members traveled to the Chamber of Commerce Depot for a reception and dinner, courtesy of the Little Red School House in Dublin.

After the meal, Clark gave a PowerPoint presentation, detailing the training process for workers and the work of the different production teams.

&uot;Our largest team is certainly our conveyance team. They are involved in loading and unloading the coils, monitoring inventory, feeding the five production lines and shipping the finished goods,&uot; Clark said.

He encouraged those who were not able to tour the plant to come and visit HYSCO soon.

&uot;If there is anyone who missed the tour who is interested in seeing what we do, just give us a call and we’ll be glad to show you around. We’re a part of the community and we want you to feel welcome,&uot; Clark told the audience.