Opening new doors with Central States

By Emma Peterson.

This new product line displays Central States’ commitment to continuous improvement and customer satisfaction.

Central States Manufacturing is a 100% employee-owned company based out of Northwest Arkansas. They operate 11 factories around the nation and maintain three main divisions — light gauge metal, building packages and installation. Recently, Shannon Conrady, Central States’ marketing director, stopped by MetalCoffeeShop® for an episode of MetalCast with Karen Edwards. Shannon explained a bit of what drives Central States, across all their factories and divisions, sharing, “We're trying to reach the metal industry with as much service and quality as possible... We want to uphold our reputation of being easy to work with, both for the quality of the product and the field considerations”

One of the ways they are doing that is with their newly released line of Sentry roll-up doors and hallway systems. While not a frequently thought of market, these new products serve many sectors, including self-storage. Shannon elaborated, “Self-storage in the United States is a $44 billion industry. With the Sentry line, Central States provides light gauge cold roll formed meta that makes up the hallway and door systems in the interior portion of a storage facility.”  

When they were developing this product, the engineering team at Central States was focused on how the end-users would interact with the doors. Shannon explained, “One of the things that we were adamant about when we developed the roll-up door is that we wanted to make sure there was a dead axle design on the door. So even though self-storage doors don’t typically get larger than a 10 by 10, the dead axle design is the same as you would find on a 20 by 20. What's important about that is that it extends the lifetime of the door because the springs are all equally tensioned with the same amount of stress and it makes it much easier to maintain.”  

In addition to making specific choices like this that will affect the entire lifespan of the product, they also took extra care to consider those installing the product. Shannon shared, “There was a very intentional approach to the installer's experience. Some manufacturers have a variety of fasteners and sizes, so you have to practically carry your toolbox with you when you go install it. The Central States door uses the same fastener for the jam and the bracket and the doorstop. And so there's just one fastener size in the hardware bag.” Additionally, they make sure to kit their hardware bags by unit. This not only reduces the amount of time installers have to spend on one door in the field, but it also makes that time spent much more efficient and frictionless.

Read the transcript, Listen to the full episode or Watch the recording for more about Central States and the new line of Sentry door systems.