Growth put more pressure on an already tight labor market
McElroy is a global leader in thermoplastic pipe fusion equipment. Founded in Tulsa in 1954, the company builds equipment used across water infrastructure, energy, construction, mining, and industrial projects around the world.
As McElroy continued investing in its Oklahoma manufacturing footprint, it needed the skilled workforce to grow alongside it.
Machinists were one of the hardest pieces. McElroy’s operation includes a wide range of sophisticated machining equipment, from Mazak Integrex and Okuma CNC equipment to Toyoda horizontals, Haas machining centers, Mitsubishi equipment, and complex grinding operations.
The challenge was not finding someone with “machinist” on a resume. It was finding people with the right experience to step onto McElroy’s floor and contribute.
Finding the right machinist meant getting specific
Before deploying Laborup, we learned the operation in detail. The machines, controls, setups, materials, processes, tolerances, shifts, and level of independence required across each role.
A machinist running repetitive production on a vertical mill is different from someone who can own a complex horizontal setup or multi-axis work from beginning to end. Both may have the same title. Their capabilities can be completely different.
We structured that detail inside Laborup and connected it to our manufacturing workforce network. The platform could understand what people had actually made, which machines and controls they knew, what kinds of setups they had owned, and how that experience lined up with McElroy’s work.
With every interview, hire, and piece of feedback, Laborup developed a better understanding of the machinists who succeed inside the operation.
The workforce grew with the factory
Laborup has helped McElroy hire across multiple machining roles with 100% retention while reducing staffing costs by roughly 60%.
But the bigger value is continuity. McElroy is adding capacity, equipment, and production. Laborup does not start over every time the company needs another machinist. The platform carries forward what it has learned about the operation, the machines, the roles, and the people who succeed there.
With every hire, that understanding gets deeper. Laborup gets better at knowing which workers can step into McElroy’s environment, contribute quickly, and stay.
More machines create capacity. The right workforce turns that capacity into output.
That is the role Laborup is increasingly playing for McElroy as the business grows.
