The largest independent scale company in the United States recently opened an office on Main Street right here in Columbia.
Michelli Weighing & Measurement has been in business since 1947 and has offices in Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, Arizona, California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. Its mission is to show the world what measurement can do by providing innovative and efficient ways to perform job functions through the use of weighing and measurement technology.
“We sell a broad range of weighing, measurement and testing products,” Vice President David Barnett said. “We’re a solution provider. We service the equipment and sell the equipment. If you go into any industry in this area, they may have a truck scale, a rail scale, testing equipment. We’re the only company in the South with two laboratories.”
Barnett said there were a lot of companies in the area flying in the equipment they sell from up North so they decided to open a Columbia office to give the companies a local supplier. It opened its doors Feb. 1.
What makes Michelli so successful is its employees and their longevity within the company.
“I’ve worked with the same people in my office for more than 30 years,” Barnett said. “We don’t have any turnover. We’ve got third-generation people who work at this company.”
Regional Manager Jay Hays added the company’s philosophy is “If you take care of the customer, the rest of the business will take care of itself.”
“We take care of our customers and treat them like our family,” he said. “They stay with us, and everything else is taken care of.”
While the Columbia office is open from 8 a.m. until 4:30 p.m., Michelli has a 24-hour answering service and its employees can be reached at all times of the day.
“We get a lot of calls at night, whether it’s Georgia Pacific in the wood industry or Sanderson Farms in the poultry industry,” Barnett said. “Feed mills go 24 hours a day; they got to feed their chickens. These chip mills with wood products, they can’t run without our scales working properly. That’s their cash register.”
Michelli also sells equipment that does testing on bottles, syringes, gloves, parachutes, buttons and everything in between. It is exclusively an industrial company.
“Anything to do with manufacturing, everything is weighed or measured at some point or another,” Hays explained. “Everything you buy is measured by volume or by weight, and we provide and maintain the equipment that does that.”
Michelli printed the very first label that went on a box of chicken in Mississippi.
For reference, Barnett told a story about getting a call from a law firm that was working on a lawsuit for an individual suing the manufacturer of his yacht. His claim was that it was not as fast as advertised. Michelli was the only company with the equipment to lift the yacht and weigh it and discovered that the individual had installed too many things made of granite, which added to the weight and was the cause of slowing it down.
Josh Anthony, who is a lifelong resident of Columbia, works in technical services with Michelli.
Michelli’s Columbia office can be reached at (601) 731-2544 or online at michelli.com.
