The Progress Index - February 17, 2006

There’s a new 'Boss' at Service Center Metals. Manufacturing plant works on $28 million expansion, welcomes new press

BY SUSAN ROBERTSON

PRINCE GEORGE - Service Center Metals is building the factory of the future in the county's Southpoint Business Park. 

Service Center Metals is currently working on the completion of a $28 million expansion that has doubled the building's size and will triple the plant's manufacturing capacity.

The plant produces aluminum extrusion, or pressed metal shapes such as square, circular or L-shaped metal rods. The extrusions are used in anything from industrial signs, electrical conduits, home appliances, furniture and even recreational equipment such as bicycles.

"Originally, we had about 70,000 square feet of manufacturing space, and now we've doubled that to 140,000 square feet, " said Chip Dollins, vice president of operations at SCM. 

The SCM plant's expansion was completed at the end of December 2005, and the company received the majority of its new press equipment, which was ordered from Italy and Mexico, at the end of January. Installers and maintenance technicians from both countries began installing the new extrusion press, which will be known as "the Boss," and the corresponding equipment on Jan. 31. 

"We are achieving world-class production rates on 'Elvis [the company's original press]' and we're hoping to do the same with 'the Boss,'" said Scott Kelley, president of SCM. 

"Elvis," SCM's first extrusion press, is a 2,800-metric ton press that is capable of producing extrusion that weighs 15 pounds per foot of length. Once installed, the Boss, a 5,000-metric ton press purchased from an Italian company called Presezzi, will be capable of producing extrusion that weighs three times what Elvis makes at 45 pounds per square foot of length. 

"Overall, we are on schedule," Dollins said. "Like any other project of the magnitude, some things are behind schedule and some things are ahead.“

The expansion will create 28 new jobs at the plant and allow SCM to produce and house 90 million pounds of aluminum extrusion. 

"We are actually going to install a Fanuc industrial robot to pack the extrusion," Dollins said. "To our knowledge, we will be the first company to do that.“

Unlike many of the 30- and 40-year-old presses in the nation, the Boss and all of the new supplementary equipment in the plant is state of the art and fully automated. 

"We are trying to build the factory of the future," Kelley said. 

According to Dollins, however, it isn't the equipment that makes Service Center Metals tick. 

"The thing that makes this company tick is the people that work here," he said. "We've got the most dedicated people who work here and it's just a real 'can-do' place.“

SCM employees and workers from the companies that built the equipment are working hard to complete the installation and have the new press operational by mid-March.