State-of-the-art Facility Features Ribbon Cutting Ceremony and Factory Tours
Right on the heels of celebrating sixty years of success, Precision Finishing Inc. constructed a brand new, 40,000 sqft. facility in Quakertown, PA. The facility was up and running in June 2017 with new equipment, processes, and capabilities. The company is now ready for a celebration and is hosting an Open House and Ribbon Cutting Ceremony on May 18th, 2018:
10:30 am – 6 pm Open House 1:00 pm Ribbon Cutting Ceremony
Precision Finishing Inc. 1800 AM Drive Quakertown, PA 18951
New building, same strategy The new building was purpose-built to support the company’s business strategy of working with customers to establish a finishing process and sell them equipment or, provide the finishing service for the customer. This strategy culminates in the company’s tagline: “You Can Do It or We Can Do It.”
The new building more than doubles the manufacturing, warehousing, and office space from the previous Sellersville, PA location. The production area consists of 16,000 sqft., with new and upgraded finishing equipment. The manufacturing area for the Chemtrol compounds product line consists of 20,000 sqft., with warehousing/shipping area of 15,000 sqft. Two floors of offices with conference rooms and a cafeteria total 7,500 sqft. for administration and customer services.
Strategic location The facility site is a few hundred yards from Interstate 476 in Quakertown, PA which provides easy access to ship and service anywhere in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic region. Key metropolitan areas of Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, etc., are within a few hours distance. Additionally, the location compliments Checker Industries, a division of Precision Finishing that services Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Columbus regions.
Precision Finishing’s new building was designed and built by Gorski Engineering. “The entire process from site selection, plan submission, construction and move-in took about one year to complete,” states Jerry Gorski, President of Gorski Engineering. “We worked very closely with Precision to find the right building site and design a facility to incorporate the operations of LEAN manufacturing along with the environmental protection features with sewer capacity and utility calculations to ensure a highly efficient structure.”
“Precision’s facility is a Butler Building.” Gorski explains, “The Butler Building system is a pre-engineered metal building produced in Annville, PA. (not far from the new Precision building site), which allows us to get the structure up and under roof quickly. All materials and components come from one source and are designed to work together so that energy efficiency is built into the system.”
The pre-engineered “Butler Building” is constructed quickly while providing energy efficiency and reducing construction waste.
LEAN process flow The facility design incorporates many production elements to for efficiency by following LEAN process flow. Precision Finishing Inc.’s President Jeff Bell explains, “With our limited space at the old building, we were constantly moving jobs to access other jobs and could only utilize two cranes to move the product around the contract shop. The new building has created more staging area for product and increasing to four cranes, has significantly improved our process flow.”
The new facility features efficient layout and production flow.
Energy efficient air compressor system At the heart of Precision’s facility, is a compressed air system to run multiple pieces of equipment. Bell explains the importance of the system, “Increasing our automatic blasting equipment capabilities required adding air compressor capacity. Our compressors were old without variable speed and utilized deliquescent to dry the air. With the help of C.H. Reed; in Hanover, Pa., we moved to the highly efficient 100 HP Quincy QGV variable speed rotary compressor utilizing refrigeration drying.”
The compressors incorporate the Quincy Frequency Drive which maintains a target system pressure automatically, adjusting its output to achieve the highest efficiency possible. Bell comments, “Having consistent air pressure and air quality is imperative when running automatic equipment. We always fought wet air and pressure issues with our old system and that is now a thing of the past.”
Precision Finishing’s compressor room and compressed air tanks feed the entire facility with energy efficient utility air.
Temperature controlled environment A key component of the design and planning of the building was to provide a positive work environment for all the employees. The results of the planning show-case a work environment that has proper lighting, temperature control and a modern atmosphere throughout all parts of the facility. “Precision’s employees are a top priority.” exclaims company Vice President, Thom Bell. “We have gathered input from them, to provide the best work environment for them. The way the building is laid out, the material organization and equipment setup, all connect directly to the employee work environment. Especially with new locker rooms and a full-sized cafeteria with exterior views, it is a comfortable place to work every day.”
Waste treatment Protecting the environment is a key focus throughout the facility and ingrained in the company’s operating philosophy. The facility design incorporates a 48 tube, 5000 gallons per day Ultra Filtration System. The system features a PLC control that enables remote monitoring of many parameters.
The waste treatment system removes particle sizes down to .01 microns – the size of the smallest virus.
New capabilities In addition to many new upgrades and systems, Precision Finishing has several new pieces of process equipment for finishing services: • Aqueous Belt Washer: ADF 4 stage belt washer with (4) 10 HP regenerative blower air knives. The wash, rinse, and dry washer has an 18“wide belt and is 27’ long. • Automated Belt Blasting System: A Clemco 2400 CFM continuous feed-thru conveyor, which incorporates 14 blast guns with an oscillating system which enables a part to be blasted on both sides at one time as the parts pass through the chamber via a conveyor. The system is for high volume continuous blasting. • Direct Pressure Indexing Blast Machine: An Empire TT 36 P with six direct pressure nozzles provides the ability to apply heavy profiles that suction blast systems cannot produce.
Space for future growth “The building was designed and located on the property for the ability to add another 30,000 sqft. for any future growth.” Jeff Bell explains, “Our goal was to create a friendly work environment, in addition to a facility which would provide us the versatility to handle any vibratory / blasting finishing project and potential value-added processes to our current offerings.”
New company location: Precision Finishing Inc. 1800 AM Drive Quakertown, PA 18951 1-800-523-6232 info@precisionfinishinginc.com