David Peacock: 2025 Review & 2026 roadmap
In 2025, we expected to have a lot of business, and we did—setting record months for incoming orders and for shipments in the process. To stay ahead, we decided to hire more people at the beginning of the year, which proved to be a good strategy. It wasn’t without some growing pains along the way, though, including training these new team members. I am proud of the way our Hytrol Family stepped up to meet those challenges and continued to support each other, our customers and partners. By the middle of the year and onward, we had a positive swing in momentum and met several company goals we set to have a really solid year.
Some of the highlights of 2025 include:
- We’ve made major strides in planning and coordination of our new ERP system, Epicor. Our teams have done and continue to do a great job in getting the system ready for us to hit the ground running in 2026.
- Despite a slow start to the year, our Hytrol Family worked hard and accumulated 7 days of Tom’s Gift. Our employees showed resilience and dedication, which ultimately led to great results for the second half of the year.
- We’ve made strategic upgrades inside the factory—constantly improving processes and increasing workplace safety. Outside manufacturing, our training teams have driven learning opportunities to help our new hires and seasoned employees become comfortable in their roles.
Looking ahead to 2026
We are very excited about our forecast for 2026. The goal is to increase topline conveyor sales from the previous year by $110 million.
So how do we get there?
Adjusting our monthly and daily projections in power, parts, controls, and other areas is just a matter of slightly increasing our current performance rate. Fort Smith is a big part of that. We plan on expanding production there by $150,000 per day. We’ve already begun hiring and training more team members there to accomplish that goal.
As mentioned, our customers and partners are providing us with the projects to get there. Our engineering and manufacturing teams at both facilities are poised to fulfill obligations to our end users. Everyone has grown their experience and trained appropriately to execute our strong backlog throughout 2026.
We have anticipated challenges that come with growing sales, such as material costs. Continuing our strategies to limit these costs will help us provide value for our customers and position Hytrol for continued success!
Epicor will play a key role in 2026 and the years to come.
We will be doing major testing across the business at the start of the year. Also, select partners will utilize the system to provide valuable feedback. By rolling out both, we are preparing for our full implementation of Epicor on June 1, 2026. Epicor will allow us to gain better insights into our scheduling, products, sales, and more. This update will include an upgrade in the tools our partners use every day.
2025 will be a year that we look back on as a preparation year for the success we have planned for 2026 and beyond. Our Hytrol Family is ready to accomplish the targets we’ve set, and their dedication is unmatched for solving any challenges along the way. We look forward to moving the world with even more excellence in 2026.
