By NICK STEWART
With a new facility and new equipment, Sudbury-based Specialty Alloys & Stainless Ltd. is not only increasing its workspace threefold, but eliminating the bottlenecks holding back growth.
“We’ve outgrown our previous place,” says Doumer Horace, president and owner.
“After using every square foot of that facility, we had to purchase a steel container which we use outside to keep some of our equipment and other goodies under lock.”
The move nearly triples the company’s available floor space from the 4,000 square feet at its Kelly Lake Road facility to 11,000-square-foot facility in the Walden Industrial Park. Horace says the move is crucial to the company’s ability to adapt to its continued growth trend.
The lack of sufficiently large facilities was the only real obstacle hindering growth for the company, which engineers and fabricates structures, manifolds, piping, hoppers and other items from various metals ranging from aluminum to inconel. Although the company’s primary business is largely with the mining industry, work is occasionally performed for pulp and paper and transportation industries. Sales for 2006 reached $1.5 million.
While the larger floor space will allow for greater storage capacity, Horace says the building’s increased 20 foot high ceiling is of particular importance.
“There are jobs we turned down because of a lack of headspace,” he says. “There are items you cannot even bring inside the shop. In order to turn around other items, like certain platforms we manufactured for Inco, you’d have to take them outside.”
Having to bring an item outside to properly rotate it could consume up to two hours of the day, an unacceptable loss when every second of production time counts, Horace says. This also led to the theft of certain materials left outdoors, with even six-inch, 400-pound pipes being carted away by thieves. What’s more, certain welding projects which had to be done outdoors because of the space problem could not be performed as a result of the colder temperatures. These problems will cease to be a concern as a result of the large floor area and headspace, Horace says.
Along with the larger overall space, the new building also features an overhead crane that rotates objects weighing 250 tons.
As a result of the increased amount of space, the company will also be able to purchase additional equipment, such as a press brake and cutting machine. These units form, bend and manipulate heavy steel and other materials, representing yet another opportunity to trim precious time off production schedules.
Without this equipment, the company is forced to wait for specialty shops and manufacturers in southern Ontario to do the work for them. This adds untold time restrictions to their schedules. Now, the company will be able to perform the work in-house, at their own pace. While Horace says two other fabrication companies in the region feature similar equipment, they are frequently booked solid with projects. Specialty Alloys will be able to assist not only their own projects, but those of external clients as well.
The company’s continued growth has seen the addition of two more employees with three more people to be hired in the near future.
“We’ve waited long enough for a place like this,” Horace says. “It’s going to allow us to do so much more.”
