“Our customers range from the large poultry producers and the largest poultry producer in the world to the local elevators here in the Midwest,” said Jim Stoelk, one of three owners of the company that employs about 110 people.

CEI has been in business for about 40 years in Cedar Rapids, with employees combining on the workload between a first and second shift.

For anyone driving on a highway and seeing a gigantic tank with a “CEI PACER” sticker on the back, the process is more than simple cutting and twisting.

“It really starts with sheet aluminum that comes in from our suppliers,” said Stoelk. “It gets cut, bent, shaped into all of the pieces that end up on our feed trailers. A fabrication department does all the cutting and the bending.” Stoelk said about “90 percent” of CEI’s parts come from inside the manufacturing facility.

“The jig is where the magic happens and they bring all these pieces together to form the tank structure and it goes to the final area, where the final components are assembled.”

Stoelk said, depending on the options a customer chooses, the cost for a customized trailer runs about $80,000 to $100,000.

A walk about CEI Pacer shows about two dozen trailers in various stages of assembly. Some still have large sheets of aluminum while others merely need the final polish before getting shipped out. Stoelk said a team works on each trailer, from the start to the finish, rather than as an assembly line style of workflow.

“Our employees are what fuel our company and I want to make that clear to the Cedar Rapids community,” said Stoelk. “The employees represent what CEI is and they share a passion for customer service, for quality and for solving customer problems.”

- The 18th China（Guangzhou）Int’l Sheet metal machinery,Forging, Stamping and Setting Equipment Exhibition