“Our RV customers are very loyal, but we have to earn it everyday. Fenwal products carry a multi-year warranty. The last thing we want is an unsatisfied customer.”

While RV is a significant market sector for the company, Fenwal also supplies a wide selection of advanced electronic gas ignition and temperature controls to commercial and industrial customers in HVAC, hydronics, boilers, furnaces, cooking, pool and spa, infrared heaters, appliances, agriculture, and many other markets. Products are available for the full range of power supplies in direct-spark or hot-surface ignition designs with self-diagnostics. Fenwal’s experienced engineering team can quickly customize new control configurations from standard off-the-shelf products and use their flexible manufacturing to efficiently produce specialized controls in both small and large volumes.

Kevin Norby, Engineering Manager – Controls, said, “Our products work in challenging environments such as cold and damp, low propane pressure and low voltage supply. Compared to other designs, we spark and light the flame reliably under marginal conditions where other products fail. We can spark even under the worst conditions an RV might experience. The environmental envelope is more critical in RV than in some other industries. For example, an RV might be used in the late fall or winter in very tough weather conditions where the operation of the furnace is critical to safety as well as a pleasant RV experience.”

Harting added, “We have a large population of product in the field. As the incumbent supplier, it is very important all new enhancements and revisions are backward compatible in form, fit and function. Our newer digital products that replace our older analog products are less expensive and more flexible in design parameters. These improvements result in fewer SKU’s for the OEM.

“We recognize we are competing in a global marketplace, and it nice to be able to say, ‘we make it in America’. We can compete against anybody with our quality, engineering design, continuous product improvement and the engineering resources that are available to our customers. We can turn samples in days. Many of our sales people are engineers and they will work on the samples and provide in-house support during the product development cycle from samples through testing to final production.”

Testimony to the company’s success and commitment to the rapidly growing RV industry, Fenwal is currently working 7 days per week and adding capacity to meet customer demand. The company partners with their customers as part of their supply chain, building to forecast and keeping safety stock. Harting added, “We offer a terrific value package to our customers, and we are not manufacturing overseas where time delays, language and product support can be issues. We’ve done some benchmark pricing against Asian suppliers and have found their costs are the same or higher than ours are. While we continue to be vigilant, there is no reason to go elsewhere when we have this kind of efficiency, productivity and capability right here in America.”