Millions Of Americans See Vinylume's Products Everyday
AUSTINTOWN, Ohio -- Millions of Americans see an Austintown manufacturer’s products everyday. What the company would really like, however, is a little more attention from customers in its own backyard.
“We’re a local manufacturer that provides local jobs,” says Orlando White, president of Vinylume Products Inc., a company that manufactures mostly replacement windows for customers across the country and vinyl extrusions for other window manufacturers in the United States. “We’ve been around a long time.”
The company has launched a new initiative, Vinylume Direct, which is designed to recapture some of the local market share that has dwindled over the last eight years. “We want to spur the interest as a supplier to the homeowners and to the contractors,” White says.
His father, Jack, started the business in 1964, and today, a third generation of the family is poised to take over the business.
His son, also named Jack, is the company’s vice president of operations and logistics. It’s important, he says, that company secure more business in the Mahoning Valley. “We’ve oriented our efforts toward homeowner sales, and it would be nice to regain territory,” the younger White remarks. “We feel like we make the best products available.”
About three-quarters of company sales are out-of-state, Jack White reports. And, Vinylume has carved out a lucrative market by providing vinyl extrusions to window producers throughout the country. “Any kind of window style the homeowner would want, we have the capability of making here. We’re trying to build our local presence,” he says.
Vinylume operates out of a 200,000-square-foot plant on Henricks Road in Austintown, its sixth address since it opened for business 49 years ago.
About 50 employees work there, manning the extrusion lines, cutting and preparing vinyl trim, assembling window frames to order, and preparing insulated glass panes for each frame.
The glass and extrusion operations run simultaneously and each order is programmed into a database and accorded a number. When it comes time for final assembly, the glass order number and window frame number are matched and the window can be shipped.
Jack White says the glass is delivered in large sheets and cut to the customer’s specifications. Then all of the glass shards are collected and recycled.
“When it comes to glass in the racks, it’s already composed of 33% recycled materials,” he notes.
The company uses two types of glass for its windows: clear, or untreated, glass, and low E glass, the younger White continues.
Low E glass, or low emissive glass, is directed toward more energy-conscious customers, he explains.
Once the glass is cut, it’s cleaned through what White describes as a “car wash for window glass.” The glass is placed on a conveyor belt and moves through a washing process and feeds into an area where workers apply the first of two sealants.
Each insulated window contains two panes of glass, White reports, and in this case, employees use a “super spacer” sealant that prevents moisture from leaking into the unit. Once that treatment is applied, the dual pane is fed to the hot-melt butyl line.
“Hot-melt butyl is this gray material that’s similar to rubber,” Jack White explains. The material is automatically applied to the contours of the windows by a computer-controlled machine that spits out the substance through a nozzle at a temperature of about 375 degrees.
On average, these windows have a life of about 20 years, he reports.
Orlando White says this operation allows Vinlylume the ability to turn an order around quickly, which could satisfy the local market.
“If someone needs the glass in his window replaced, we’re right here,” he says. “We could make the glass to order the very same day.”
As employees assemble the glass windows, others are operating the company’s extrusion presses, White notes. “We have hundreds of molds and dies.”
The extrusion plant occupies about 30,000 square feet that hold 10 vinyl extrusion presses.
Polyvinyl chloride, commonly called PVC, is purchased from source companies and delivered to Vinylume in the form of either powder or pellet resin. The resin is vacuumed out of a large holding bin and transported to a hopper near the top the extrusion line. From there, the resin is gravity-fed into the extrusion line.
“It continues the same feed all the time,” says Steve Cornell, who operates one of the extrusion presses.
The resin drops inside the press and is forced through a heater band that can reach between 300 and 400 degrees. The material is then drawn through a die that will form the specific profile of the long vinyl trim.
Orlando White says those extrusions bound for further assembly at the company are cut to specification and assembled and glued accordingly. The rest are boxed and shipped to contractors all across the country.
“There are about 75 manufacturers we know about in 27 states,” Jack White says.
“We probably have millions of windows in the country that were manufactured here. Our windows and work are all over the country, but no one knows we exist here.”
Editor's Note: This story was published in the MidMarch edition of The Business Journal. Click here to buy a copy or to subscribe.
Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.