Welcome to the Business Journal Archives
Search for articles below, or continue to the all new BusinessJournalDaily.com now.
Search
Niles Expanded Metals & Plastics in Expansion Mode
NILES, Ohio -- A Niles manufacturer that produces expanded metal products is busy doing some expanding of its own.
Last month, Niles Expanded Metals & Plastics acquired Metalspand Inc. in Waurika, Okla., since renamed Metalspand by Niles. Next on the agenda is moving into new markets in the South and the Northwest, says company President Bill Phillips Jr.
“We’re looking south of Atlanta and in the Seattle area for other opportunities,” Phillips says. “We want to create a small operation that can compete in areas where, traditionally, expanded metal manufacturers aren’t in.”
Niles Expanded Metals, 310 N. Pleasant Ave., manufactures metal mesh products used in industrial applications, automotive systems, and the aerospace and security industries, Phillips says. Since it was established in 1960, the company has successfully diversified into several divisions that serve an array of customers across the country, and expanding its geographical footprint is key to enhancing its service capabilities, he says.
“We knew we had to expand somewhere,” Phillips says. “The expansion in Oklahoma was something we needed to do because we hadn’t participated in that part of the country.”
Shipping products beyond a 300-mile radius of the Niles plant proves cost-prohibitive, Phillips says, so the most logical alternative is to acquire smaller manufacturing operations in regions where the company believes it could satisfy a growing market. “You have to manufacture in that region,” he says.
The 110,000-square-foot plant in Niles employs 48 and the Oklahoma complex – which consists of a 40,000-square-foot manufacturing plant and a 15,000-square-foot processing operation – employs 10.
The company’s expanded metal is a mesh product – the steel mesh found on an outdoor patio table top or outside benches, for example – that is slit and stretched into patterns through a single process from steel coil or sheet.
Thirteen years ago, Niles Expanded Metals invested $3.5 million in new processing equipment that increased substantially its production capability, Phillips says.
“At that time, this machine was the only one of its kind in the U.S. used for expanded metal production,” he says, as he points to a large press fed by a coil of metal. As the metal enters the press, it’s stretched under a pressure of 500 tons per square inch, creating diamond-patterned voids in what moments before had been a solid piece of steel.
“We take solid sheets of coil – steel, aluminum, stainless, ductile metal of any kind – slit it and stretch it in this operation called expanding,” he says.
This expanding press is faster than the two older presses that operate on the main production floor, Phillips elaborates. “Most of the older machines run at 60 strokes per minute. This one runs up to 400 strokes a minute.” The newer machine requires just one operator while the older presses need two to be operated, he says.
Manufacturing metal mesh through the expanding process leaves no waste unlike other methods such as perforation in which a stamping process punctures the metal to create the patterns in the sheets.
Key to the success of the business is finding the right market and use for its products. “We manufacture expanded metal mesh for all kinds of industries and try to consider every possible application,” Phillips says. “We try to be sure that if it’s expanded metal, we can make it.”
The industrial products division, for example, manufactures expanded steel grating routinely used for catwalks and flooring by industrial concerns. This core business helped to spawn other divisions such as its security fence business, Phillips adds.
“As the industry tightened up, we had to come up with new ways to use expanded metal,” he says. Heavy-duty security fencing seemed an appropriate market because the products made in Niles are much more difficult to cut through compared to standard chain-link fences. “We had a lot of business along the border for a long time,” he remarks.
Today, the trend in the security fence industry is to protect infrastructure such as water-treatment plants, substations, railroad lines, and oil and gas projects including “hopefully, the Keystone Pipeline,” Phillips says.
This strategy has led Niles Expanded Metals to engage markets that use designs such as hexagonal and honeycomb patterns for architectural and decorative purposes, precision mesh in the aerospace and automotive industries, and a new composites division.
“That seems to be the side of the business that shows the most potential for growth right now,” Phillips says of its composites division. This segment of the company focuses on creating a plastic resin and carbon fiber composite that is used in compressed natural gas tubes.
Meanwhile, its precision mesh division uses smaller expanders – able to process up to 48 inches in width of material opposed to the 10-foot and 12-foot presses on the main production floor – to manufacture light-gauge mesh and metallic mesh foils.
“These meshes are components for air bags,” Phillips says as he points to rows of coiled, flexible metal roughly three feet high and a foot in width that are packaged and ready for shipment. “We had a customer in Juarez, Mexico, and they were doing this. Recently, a lot of airbags were recalled and they couldn’t keep up with it so they sent work our way.”
The company cleared space and added new equipment in its plant to accommodate its precision business about three years ago, Phillips says.
“When something like this pops up, you jump all over it,” he says. “This process requires some expertise.”
Randy First, a press operator in the precision division, says that the diameters of this particular product must be carefully inspected before it’s wrapped and sent to the customer. As the mesh strip emerges from the press, First uses what looks like a double-tipped pen – one end marked red, the other green. Should the tip at the green end fit through the small perforations in the metal, the spaces are measured correctly and the product is ready for packaging. Should the red end fit through, the dimensions are too big and the mesh is flawed.
“Green means go. Red means stop,” he says.
The precision business also manufactures micromesh foil designed to protect composite structures such as aircraft, wind turbine blades and fuel tanks from lightning strikes, Phillips relates.
“We make copper and aluminum meshes designed for lightning strike protection,” he reports.
Initially, the division was started to serve Airbus, Phillips says, but has since expanded into other sectors. The product is a thin foil mesh that serves as an exterior layer of skin on an aircraft – or any product – constructed of composite materials.
Composites – that is, materials such as fiberglass or carbon fiber – are either nonconductive or less conductive than metals. Thus, the material isn’t able to absorb the energy force of a lightning strike and would break apart.
A metallic micromesh skin, however, can act as a conductor and dissipate the energy contained in a lightning bolt, protecting the composite structure, Phillips says.
“Wind turbine blades are a big deal,” Phillips says. For example, a lightning strike could easily take out a turbine that isn’t protected by metal meshing. This could prove costly, especially if the wind farm is offshore. “Our product allows it to take the strike,” he says, “so you could repair it in the field and the blade is not down.”
Pictured: Bill Phillips Jr., president of Niles Expanded Metals & Plastics, holds a section of expanded metal grating his company manufactures.
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
CLICK HERE to subscribe to our twice-monthly print edition and to our free daily email headlines.