Lawrence’s Kinedyne Corp. has a demanding client — the U.S. military.

Kinedyne provides the military with 5,000 heavy-duty cargo nets a month at a 16,000 square-foot facility in the Franklin Business Park, which is just south of East Hills Business Park.

“We do quite a bit of overtime,” said Linda Hibner, who supervises approximately 50 employees at Kinedyne.

Kinedyne opened the plant last year after winning a defense department contract worth approximately $17.5 million. Rita Higgins, Kinedyne’s government contracts manager, said the bidding process was very competitive. She said Kinedyne won the contract with a relatively low bid.

“There’s a very low margin on it for us,” she said.

The contract runs into 2005, and company executives are confident that it will be renewed beyond that.

“This thing could go on for quite some time,” said Steve Atzeni, vice president of operations.

Most of the 50 employees at the new plant work full time, according to Atzeni. Some already worked for Kinedyne when the contract was signed, and volunteered to transfer to the new facility. In addition, many new employees were hired through a temp agency.

It takes between 60 and 90 minutes to produce each cargo net, according to Hibner. The workers then pack the nets into large crates to be shipped to various military bases, ultimately bound for the Middle East, Europe and elsewhere.

“It’s not just restricted to what’s going on in Iraq,” Atzeni said. “These are going all over the world.”

The military uses the nets to tie down various kinds of cargo during shipping.

Kinedyne has its corporate headquarters in New Jersey, along with offices in California, Alabama and Ohio. The company came to Lawrence in 1989 when it purchased Aeroquip Corp.’s cargo control division.

According to Atzeni, the city offered tax abatements to convince executives to keep the company in Lawrence with some of Aeroquip’s personnel and infrastructure. Kinedyne’s main Lawrence office is now located at the East Hills Business Park, just across Kansas Highway 10 from the Franklin Park plant.

Aside from the current contract, the company may have other prospects for expansion in Lawrence.

“We’ve got some other opportunities that are in the pipeline,” Atzeni said. “We are a very aggressive company that likes to grow.”