K&B turns 40 with “more accurate” name, new home

Aerial view of the new K&B Industries North Houma corporate headquarters, which includes a 205,000-sq-ft manufacturing facility.

The family-owned premium threader, once known as K&B Machine of Houma, La., is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, with a soon-to-be new home and a corporate identity that “more accurately reflects our range of services.”

On Jan. 1, the company officially changed its name to K&B Industries, which President Kenny Wood, Jr., said was necessary to “more accurately represent our world-class capabilities and service offerings.” The now-K&B Industries holds API and premium threading licenses, encompassing well over 100 different connections and servicing a diverse client base.

Meanwhile, later this summer, the new name and logo will accompany the firm to its new headquarters, threading and manufacturing facility on a 35-acre site in nearby Schriever, La., located off LA-311 and U.S. Highway 90. According to K&B, the location of the state-of-the-art manufacturing facility provides direct trucking access to Port Fourchon and the U.S. onshore shale plays. The company will begin the staged relocation this summer, with plans to be fully operational by the fall, says Vice President of Operations
Doug Hemstreet. The original Houma facility will continue to provide room for storage.

The new facility includes 205,000 sq ft of manufacturing and 12,000 sq ft of administrative space that includes offices overlooking the plant floor. The plant will accommodate all of K&B’s manufacturing, tubular accessories and threading operations. Hemstreet said that with a recent expansion, the new facility will have 110,000 sq ft of covered storage space.

“The concept behind the (manufacturing) design is linear flow of the entire production process that will move continuously from one end of the building and out the other,” Hemstreet said. “It streamlines our logistics in a way that is very beneficial.”

Hemstreet said continual year-on-year increases in demand left the company’s 20-acre birthplace literally straining to keep pace. “We saw a 25% increase in business last year, which was the third or fourth consecutive year, where we had 20-plus percentage increases. We anticipate, as we continue to improve our technologies, our machinery and our capabilities, the demand from our customers will continue to support these improvements,” he said.

With the company now 40 years old and preparing to move into a new home, the time was also ripe to change its official name as well, said Whitney Bouterie, executive assistant/marketing. “We felt the time was right. We are a completely different company than we were in 1974. We’ve grown so much, and K&B Machine did not accurately reflect the range of services we provide, so we wanted a name that says where we’re going in this industry.”