Butech Builds Some of World's Largest Machines
SALEM, Ohio -- In a sense, the work performed at Butech Bliss’ plant here comes around full circle as Matt Joing points to a large piece of thick steel plate that will be used to manufacture industrial components and equipment.
“This plate originally came off a coil processing line on machines that we probably manufactured,” says Joing, manager at the Butech Bliss plant on South Ellsworth Avenue. “We use a lot of products that come from the equipment that we build.”
Butech Bliss designs and manufactures machines – very big machines – mostly for the metals industry. Shears, levelers, scrap choppers, extrusion lines, rolling mill equipment, and entire steel-coil processing lines are created from concept to final product at Butech Bliss’ engineering and manufacturing operations in Salem.
“All of the engineering and design work is done here,” Joing says. “That’s what we’re known for – our custom-designed equipment.”
This isn’t ordinary, high-volume equipment, either, Joing explains. Butech Bliss has undertaken massive, complex projects that take months of work that include research, design, engineering, fabrication, welding and building.
“If you want something cookie-cutter, you’re not going to get it from us,” Joing says.
On March 11, workers at Butech Bliss’ Ellsworth Avenue plant were busy welding together heavy beams that will provide the frame for what will be the largest stretch leveler in the world, capable of handling three million pounds of steel.
“It takes many hundreds of hours to weld this piece,” Joing elaborates, noting that this particular stretch leveler will consume about eight months of work. “It may take six to eight weeks in the weld shop, another six to eight weeks in machining. Then, there’s another two months required for assembly,” he says. Only then is the equipment tested and prepared for shipment.
The manufacturing process excludes the months of engineering and design work that first must be performed on the product, Joing explains. “We do about three of these kinds of machines a year,” he reports.
Over the last decade, Butech Bliss has gradually expanded its capability to capture some of the most challenging projects heavy industry has to offer, Joing says. Ten years ago, for example, it would have been very difficult for the company to manufacture the type of equipment it does today.
“We’re growing into these markets,” Joing says.
Butech Bliss was created from two Salem companies in the early 2000s. In 1999, Bliss-Salem Corp., a company that manufactured rolling mill equipment for the steel industry and whose roots can be traced to Brooklyn, N.Y., 150 years ago, filed for bankruptcy. That year, Butech, a company formed in 1985 by John Buta, its president, purchased the manufacturing plant and later the Bliss name and its intellectual property.
Since then, Butech Bliss’ powerful combination of technological and engineering know-how plus its highly skilled workforce have helped make the company a very competitive force in a market that has its periods of volatility.
“In many cases we are designing, building and testing some of the fastest, largest, most productive equipment of its kind in the world,” relates Jock Buta, executive vice president. “We’re a pretty intense design-technology company, which differentiates us from other people who just do manufacturing.”
Buta describes Butech Bliss as an “engineering company with a really big manufacturing operation.” The benefit of a design-and-build strategy is that it allows the company the freedom to develop its own manufacturing processes, special tooling and techniques that help make production more efficient and competitive, he notes.
“The key is that all of the things we manufacture are designed by our engineers,” Buta says. “We employ 50-plus design engineers,” he reports, which excludes those in the sales department or on the shop floor.
In all, the company employs about 250 in two plants in Salem. About 100 are employed in administration and another 150 are tradesmen employed in the two plants – that on South Ellsworth Avenue and a second the company bought in 2008 on Pennsylvania Avenue once home to Sekely Industries.
The company workforce is composed of “extraordinary people, doing extraordinary things,” Buta remarks, noting Butech Bliss’ welders, fitters, fabricators and machinists are all highly trained and experienced in their fields.
Both new and old equipment is used in Butech Bliss’ operations, Joing says as he gestures to a large planer mill that might be 50 years old. “We tend to get a lot out of the older equipment,” he states.
While modern CNC machines are valuable for parts produced in huge volumes, the older, non-automated and comparatively low-tech machines are indispensable when it comes to manufacturing custom-designed components, Joing notes.Thus, the skill and experience of a machinist is integral during this process.
Phil Saunders, a milling machinist at the South Ellsworth plant, must gauge spindle positions manually instead of programming a computer-controlled device. “He does have digital readouts to spot his location, but it’s not automated in the sense so the spindle isn’t programmed to move to that part. The better the machinist, the more valuable it is for us,” Joing says.
The company does operate many CNC machines and uses automated technology, he says, but often finds that using the older equipment proves both feasible and practical. “As machine builders,” he remarks, “we can upgrade the older equipment and make them useful and productive.”
Still, new technological innovations are evident throughout the plant.
Welders, for example, are outfitted with specialized helmets that come equipped with powered fresh-
air respirators that enable the flow of air as they work on a particular job. Moreover, the helmets contain adjustable visors that allow the welder to simply slide the protective shaded lens down over the helmet’s clear window when it comes time to weld a part. After the weld is finished, the employee can switch to the clear visor for, say, a grinding operation without ever removing the helmet.
“Before, they were switching helmets all the time,” Joing says. “These hoods provide them with extra protection. It’s a safety issue, but it’s also more productive for the welders.”
The South Ellsworth Avenue plant includes 400,000 square feet of space, and an overhead crane with a capacity of 200 tons. Two years ago, the company realized record sales, which led into a very busy 2013 in terms of production, Joing reports.
“This year is more of a steady pace,” he says.
Executive Vice President Buta says steel service centers, processors, automotive and appliance manufacturers and steel mills all share a stable but promising outlook for this year.
“A lot of them are trying to play catch-up,” Buta says, and he looks to release some capital expenditures this year for new upgrades or projects. “We want to be a part of that.”
Buta believes that new methods of production, such as 3-D printing and additive manufacturing, present an exciting future for his business and the industry. “We’re really encouraged by initiatives such as NAMII,” the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute, rebranded as America Makes. “We’re a supporter of that and we want it to succeed,” he says.
This story was published in the April edition of The Business Journal.
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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