LaFayette Engineering, Inc. | 2405 Lebanon Road Danville, Kentucky 40422 | (844) 845-7580
LaFayette Engineering, Inc.
2405 Lebanon Road Danville, Kentucky 40422
(844) 845-7580
Click on a date to learn more about LaFayette Engineering.
In 1989, a young and eager Bruce Robbins went on to start his own controls company in Lexington, Ky. He did not have a name for his company yet but, was excited to get started. On a flight back from his first site visit he was asked; what the name of his company would be? With the company being based out of Lexington, which is in Fayette County, it made sense to keep the name with his Kentucky roots. He replied LaFayette Engineering. Our journey started as a young man trying to come up with a name and has turned into one of the most well-known controls companies around the United States.
In 1989, Bruce was trying to secure LaFayette’s first major controls job. He was on the phone the whole day and was able to close the sale before a nurse had to interrupt. It was about time for his second son to be born. He had just closed LaFayette’s first major job from the delivery room of the hospital. That son that was born with his father’s drive and is ironically the one who has done most of the controls for that same customer.
LaFayette doubled the building size by adding on a larger front office and a much larger Control Cabinet Assembly area. We also converted the old panel shop into office space that was used to house associates as the business continued to boom in.
As LaFayette continued to grow, it came to pass where it continued down the same path or to grow even larger. The choice to grow was an easy one and we had the perfect building in mind. With the purchase of the new office, LaFayette grew from 6k sq. ft. to 60k sq. ft. With the extra space, we assembled a test loop so that we can test controls before they go to the job site, test the program before implementing on site, test new products, and just general learning tools. It also allowed for much more office space, as well as, a panel shop that can handle building 4 large enclosures at one time.
In 2015, LaFayette Transit was created with Bruce and Beth purchasing their first jet. A risky move but a move that has changed LaFayette’s culture. Why you may ask? It’s simple, LaFayette’s main focus is to be able to support their customers. After 9/11 all travel become more difficult. If a customer was having trouble it could take a day before we could get to them in the case of emergencies. With the addition of the jet, we could now not only be at a customer’s facility in less than a day but able to be at multiple customer’s facilities in that same day.
Lexington was a great place for LaFayette to start but as the business became sustainable, there was no longer a need to be in one of the largest cities in Kentucky. Bruce wanted to move LaFayette closer to his family in Danville, Ky and making this move would make it easier to maintain the family environment within the company. As LaFayette has grown, we have tried to take every step in keeping it as family-oriented as possible. Today Bruce’s wife, 3 sons, brother, daughter-in-law, sister-in-law, and brother-in-law all play a crucial part in LaFayette’s success. As a single person, we can accomplish very little but together we can accomplish anything.
LaFayette doubled the building size by adding on a larger front office and a much larger Control Cabinet Assembly area. We also converted the old panel shop into office space that was used to house associates as the business continued to boom in.
When Bruce and Beth started LaFayette they did not want to be a conveyor integrator. They wanted LaFayette to focus on learning about all conveyors to be able to give the customer the best system for their building no matter the company. As LaFayette grew it became apparent that we needed to find a conveyor manufacturer with the same goals of getting the customer the best system for their money with the key being sustainability. We found that in Hytrol Conveyor but wanted to create a separate company to handle the relationship since LaFayette is known as a controls team. We thought it would be best to keep LaFayette as the controls group and create Southern Conveyor to handle the mechanical Engineering. Since Southern Conveyor was created in 2013 they have went on to be a top Hytrol integrator each year till today.
In August 2017, LaFayette took its first steps in becoming a nationwide company. We had already developed a group of employees who created a team atmosphere, we just needed an office location. Since the day the west coast office opened its priority was to service the greater Los Angeles area and continues to do so today.
In August 2017, LaFayette took its first steps in becoming a nationwide company. We had already developed a group of employees who created a team atmosphere, we just needed an office location. Since the day the west coast office opened its priority was to service the greater Los Angeles area and continues to do so today.
With our goal to offer services from coast to coast, in 2017, LaFayette Engineering joined forces with Century Conveyor a 30+ year old company. Century Conveyor is a material handling system integration specialists company located in South Plainfield, New Jersey. Adding Century Conveyor to the LaFayette Team not only provided customers in the New York City area with remote support from Kentucky but emergency hands-on service team from the Century office.
In 2022 Lafayette Engineering Inc. gained the title of manufacturer when we introduced our first patented product, the LMS.
Following the success of our three previous locations, we saw an opportunity to gain an even larger reach with our customers. LEI added an Atlanta location to our team.
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