Stateline builds generator sets to order without the long wait

Stateline Power Corp. in Greenville, Ohio, has it all figured out: Give customers what they need, get it to them on time, and offer it up with some down-home friendliness.

Works every time. 

Perhaps that’s why so many customers come to them when they need a custom-built emergency standby and prime-power generator set, and time is of the essence.

“In the generator set business, time is always critical,” explains Kirk Harman, the company’s vice president of operations. “We get a lot of business because of our ability to fulfill our customers’ needs and wants, whether it’s lead time, size and power requirements, or color.”

Part of their success stems from their in-house fabrication capabilities and buying trusted components locally — including John Deere engines. Superior Diesel, a John Deere engine distributor located just three hours away in Seville, Ohio, keeps Stateline stocked with engines. “We stock 60 John Deere engines on the shelf and forecast our engine needs with Superior Diesel monthly. Because if we have the right engine in stock, we are able to ship a custom gen-set with just a five-day lead time.” 

Stateline has been powering its generator sets with John Deere engines since the late 1990s. “Truthfully, we move hundreds of John Deere engines in a year, and we just don’t have any engine trouble,” says Harman. 

“John Deere has a reliable engine, yet if we need a part, we can get it fast — usually within 24 hours — and find service anywhere in the country through the John Deere dealer network. We lean toward John Deere because the brand often sells itself. It’s a no-brainer for us.” 

“We get a lot of business because of our ability to fulfill  our customers’ needs and wants.”—  Kirk Harman, vice president of Stateline Power Corp.

Power Corp.

The company manufactures a range of  John Deere–powered Marathon generator sets ranging from 30 to 400 kWe and  makes use of the entire spectrum of  John Deere engine displacements. “We size the engine depending on the voltage that our customers need, and the John Deere line of engines allows us to supply a wide range of power nodes to those customers.”

John Deere engines power about 80 percent of the diesel line of generators the company builds. Harman says the agricultural industry continues to be the company’s strongest market. He has seen the demand for emergency standby generator sets grow recently with the rise in the number of commercial egg-production facilities in his home state of Ohio as well as other Midwest states. Stateline generator sets are also supplying emergency standby power to an increasing number of pork facilities and vegetable nurseries. 

“We cut our teeth in the agricultural market, and then branched out to other industries, such as oil and gas,” says Harman, “but we’ve never lost touch with the ag market.” 

While a lion’s share of Stateline’s business is emergency standby generator sets with Tier 3 engines, the company also manufactures prime-power generator sets. Recently the company began manufacturing generator sets that meet stringent Interim Tier 4 and Final Tier 4 emissions regulations. 

Among them, Stateline has developed a custom generator set package to power revived railroad locomotives known as “switcher cars.” The 100-kWe Interim Tier 4 generator sets power air compressors for the pneumatic braking system through a variable frequency drive (VFD). Stateline packages the generator sets in a custom-built powder-coated aluminum enclosure. 

Stateline Power Corp. also builds generator sets for the military — a testament to the reliability and longevity that its employees imbue into each and every unit. Stateline fabricates and powder-coats many of their own metal parts, including their all-aluminum weather enclosures. A standard enclosure (mainly purposed  for the agriculture market) is built with 1.6-millimeter (.063-inch) aluminum, while a “deluxe” sound-attenuated model features a 3.2-millimeter (.13-inch) aluminum construction with an impressive 241-kilometer (150-mile-per-hour) wind-load rating to stand up to harsh weather. “We will never be the least expensive, but our quality is second to none,” says Harman.

And so is their knack for centering their focus on the customer experience. “Most of our customers know us by name,” says Harman. “It’s almost like we’re dealing with family.”

Distributor: Superior Diesel in Rhinelander, Wisconsin; www.sdiesel.com