CLYDE, Ohio — If every washing machine ever made in this Sandusky County town were placed end-to-end, the line would stretch halfway to the moon or could circle the Earth four and a half times.

“We make 20,000 washers a day, five days a week. One rolls down the line and is shipped about every four seconds,” said Dan O’Brien, the manager who oversees the sprawling 2.4 million-square-foot facility in Clyde.

It is an impressive number to be sure. But not all that surprising considering Whirlpool Corp.’s Clyde facility has long been regarded as the largest washing machine plant in the world.

Such bigness is evident given an inside peek of the sprawling factory that will celebrate 65 years of activity this year. But the plant is nowhere near retirement.

Employing 3,000 workers, it remains a bustling beehive of people, parts, and equipment. 

PHOTO GALLERY: Whirlpool facility in Clyde

About 100 workers were hired each of the last two years, and plans are to do the same the next two years, replacing retirees and other departures.

Since 1952, when it began churning out machines looking more like clunky droids from Star Wars than the sleek programmable front-load and top-load boxes of today, the Clyde plant has been a major contributor to Benton Harbor, Mich.-based Whirlpool’s $21 billion appliance business.

Whirlpool holds a 65 percent share of the $3.9 billion U.S. washer market, according to market research firm IbisWorld, Last year, 9.6 million washers were shipped in the United States.

The company is a market leader with its Whirlpool, Maytag, and Amana brands, all made in Clyde, said Jim Keppler, vice president of integrated supply chain and quality for Whirlpool.

The Maytag and Whirlpool brands give the company “strong customer loyalty, particularly among traditional consumers who are family oriented and look for reliable and long-lasting products,” according to research firm Euromonitor International.

Most of what the factory makes is sold in North America. Whirlpool previously has said that about 10 percent of what is made in Clyde is exported to Europe, Australia, Latin America, and Asia.

But the Clyde plant’s significance is much more than wash cycles and spin cycles.

Way of life

Whirlpool has been a way of life in Clyde for five generations of families. The plant has spawned countless marriages, children, and friendships, not to mention a tax base that helps pay for roads and schools and draws business.

“Without Whirlpool being here, Clyde would still be a village and not a city,” said Scott Black, Clyde’s mayor and Whirlpool retiree who spent 41 years working in the plant. Clyde is 45 miles southeast of Toledo.

“My family has four generations in there,” he said. “I met my wife there, and we’re connected to another family through there. Just about everybody who has ever worked there had a dad, a sister, a brother, or a cousin who worked there.

“When you have that kind of connection, that tends to make it more personal. It’s more than a plant.”

Made in Clyde

The plant makes most of its own parts and then assembles them into washers, and thus, it has several “factories within a factory,” said Mr. O’Brien, the Whirlpool manager.

It has a stamping facility, a plastic injection molding facility, a testing area, a training area, warehousing, and two assembly areas, one for front-loading and one for top-loading machines. The stamping area has two 1,500-ton stamping presses that together punch out 20,000 washing machine tops and fronts a day.

A person will walk 3 miles circling around to each minifactory.

The plant has a fleet of 70 autonomous vehicles hauling strings of carts loaded with parts, weaving their way through sections of the complex, passing by a mix of production machines, about 100 robots, and 1,000 shift workers.

Overhead, 30 miles of conveyors wind their way throughout the plant, passing through wall openings, dipping down to where they’re needed, and floating back up when they’re not needed.

At the trucking bays, dozens of tractor-trailer rigs pull in and out frequently, bringing parts from a network of suppliers that have sprung up around Clyde to meet the plant’s delivery schedule.

In 2010, Whirlpool began what ended up being a $200 million investment in the Clyde plant. Mr. O’Brien said every production line in the plant was moved to locations that made the operation more efficient — and cleaner — than before.

That may have been a key factor in the company’s 2014 decision to move from Monterrey, Mexico, to Clyde the production of commercial front-loader washers, creating 100 jobs.

Mr. Keppler said the Clyde facility “is a leader in laundry manufacturing and will continue to make innovative new products for our North American region there.”

An example of that innovation includes Whirlpool’s new Smart All-In-One Care Washer-Dryer combo introduced in January at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show. It allows one load to be washed and dried in the same machine. The machine is not being made in Clyde yet but is expected to be later.

Types of washers

Overall, the plant makes top-loading and front-loading residential washers with various options and price points, plus coin-operated commercial washers.

Two years ago, the plant began using a flexible production strategy to train workers how to make both front-loaders and top-loaders. Previously they were trained to make one or the other.

The new strategy lets the plant quickly increase or decrease production of either top-loaders or front-loaders, depending on market demand, by shifting workers to what is needed.

That has been important as top loaders have become more popular in the last few years than front-loaders, said Nick Baker, a spokesman for the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers.

“You had the top load with the agitator, and for a while you had the higher efficiency front-loader in demand because they used less water,” Mr. Baker said. “But now people favor the top loader without the agitator.”

More than half of top-load washers shipped in the United States last year did not have an agitator, he said.

‘Can-do’ attitude

The flex system also has a worker component, as groups of workers rotate jobs every 30 minutes for ergonomic benefits, said Roberto Miller, the plant’s head of operations.

Given the mental strain that comes with a repetitive job, Whirlpool appoints a “spirit leader” for each assembly line who plans activities to keep boredom at bay.

“You’re going to be here 40 hours. What you do for your employees is what makes you successful,” Mr. O’Brien said. “As leaders, our job is to empower [employees] and allow them to be creative.”

Mr. Miller, who has spent 18 years at Whirlpool and been assigned to three other manufacturing plants, said he noticed something special about the Clyde plant.

“They have a strong ‘can-do’ attitude. They’re very approachable, friendly. You see smiles on their faces,” he said. “They always wave, and they are very engaged.”

The attitude, he said, likely stems from the closeness of the Clyde community.

Recently, a 51-year employee retired from the plant. Company officials also just honored two workers for perfect attendance of more than 30 years.

Mr. Black, the Clyde mayor, said the camaraderie and spirit in the plant derives from the relationships outside of it.

“It’s just a thing, and when I worked there it was kind of a joke, but it was true — if you worked there, you never said anything bad about the person next to you, because you were probably related to that person in some way,” Mr. Black said.

He added: “The people are proud to do what they do because they know that the washing machines made in Clyde are the ones used in the whole country, really. That creates it a sense of pride that you’re doing that.”

Contact Jon Chavez at: jchavez@theblade.com or 419-724-6128.

First Published March 19, 2017, 4:00 a.m.