Kohler

Is it just me, or is it odd that Kohler (Who makes engines) also make toilets?? :wink:

If that is your opinion, then I’m sure they would stop sending generators down your way to those who need them after Harvey. I’m sure no one down there really appreciated their help. Let’s see, I believe engnes are built in Brownsville, is that in Texas? I doubt that your opinion is shared by the majority of those who live in your area.

Can't anyone laugh anymore?? it's not my opinion. i actually really do like kohler engines.

P.S. they are made in Kohler WISCONSIN.

Yes, they are made in Kohler WI, but also Chongqing China, Hattiesburg MS, plus Italy, Japan, Mexico and at one time in Texas. They have worked with many companies all over the world on various engine lines across the world and some have been successful and others not. If you haven’t noticed, I live in Wisconsin and have toured all parts of the Kohler engine facilities, from R&D to manufacture, assembly and testing, multiple times. Your first post could very easily be taken as Kohler Engines can be synonymous with crap, to which I cannot agree with, as I know many hard workers there who try to make the best engine they can. Sometimes they make a bad line, like every manufacturer, but you name me any manufacurer that hasn’t built a dud. A spade is a spade, but all decks have hearts.

To survive in a modern economy you have to specialize and dominate a market sector
Or diversify into several non connected sectors.
So Kohler could go out of small engines tomorrow without going broke.

Simsmetal was ( still is sort of ) a scrap metal merchant.
Albert G Simms knew how cyclic this business was so he diversified into a different sector every time scrap prices were very high
From women's bras through radio stations and down to private railroads.
In the USA they ran rerolling mills turning old railway line into very high grade reo bar for 1/4 the cost of virgin material till the USA Government banned it.
When I started work there we were given a company internal order book and the only item we could not buy internally was bottled gas & petrol.

In the same vein, small engines are very cyclic, run on very low margins with a very long time of vendor finance to the mower companies.
So getting into something that has more consistent sales at a higher margin is sound business management.
In the 50's vertical intergration was the fashion so you owned the entire process from the time the ore was mined till the time your product was sold and even the loans to the end consumer.
GE was a prime example of this till they got too greedy franchised all the manufacture and went full on into the easy money consumer finance.

Then USA management became dominant and that was all about having bigger balls than your opposition and buying out or taking over all of your competitors till you "Owned the Market" ( the title of a very popular management book ) so you set both the price of your inputs and the cost to the consumer.
Thus vertically intergrated companies sold off the chain in favour of taking over the market, which is fine if demand is inelastic ( which it isn't ).

Now the current crop of Phd educated executives are into retreating into your "core business " because they can not manage to do what Albert G Simms ( a man who never went to high school ) could do on the back of an envelope .

So yes it is good that Kohler make dunnies ( they also make taps ) but we do call them Krappers down here.

Scrubcadet10 said:

Is it just me, or is it odd that Kohler (Who makes engines) also make toilets?? :wink:

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You'd be shocked at who actually makes what in this country. When I was a trucker, I was sent to Olatha KS to a Lipton plant. I thought I was picking up tea. WOO HOO, I though. Finally a light load. Unfortunately, Lipton (at least back then) made "Country Crock" butter. And that's what I hauled. About 40,000 lbs of it.