Flex-N-Gate
Khan worked at the automotive manufacturing company Flex-N-Gate while attending the University of Illinois. When he graduated he was hired as the engineering director for the company. In 1978, he started Bumper Works, which made car bumpers for customized pickup trucks and body shop repairs. The transaction involved a $50,000 loan from the Small Business Loan Corporation and $16,000 in his savings.
In 1980 he bought Flex-N-Gate from his former employer Charles Gleason Butzow, bringing Bumper Works into the fold. Khan grew the company so that it supplied bumpers for the Big Three automakers. In 1984 he began supplying a small number of bumpers for Toyota pickups. By 1987 it was the sole supplier for Toyota pick ups and by 1989 it was the sole supplier for the entire Toyota line in the United States. Toyota Sensei instruction drastically transformed the company efficiency and ability to change its manufacturing process within a few minutes. Since then the company has grown from $17 million in sales to an estimated $2 billion in 2010.
By 2011, Flex-N-Gate had 12,450 employees and 48 manufacturing plants in the United States and several other countries, and took in $3 billion in revenue.
In May 2012, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined Flex-N-Gate $57,000 for health violations at its Urbana plant.
Read more about this topic: Shahid Khan