Reznor Reinvents Business, Saves 125-Year-Old Firm
MERCER, Pa. -- Three years ago, it looked as if one of the oldest companies in the Shenango Valley would be forced to close its doors and relocate its operations, and with it, 100 jobs.
Today, Reznor, a division of Memphis-based Thomas & Betts Corp., which manufactures commercial/industrial heating, ventilation and air conditioning equipment, stands at the same site in Mercer, Pa. that it’s occupied since 1911.
There it is streamlining operations, introducing new products, engaging in sophisticated research. And it employs 150. Instead of relocating, Reznor managers opted to develop a plan they thought would transform the division’s business model and rescue the company.
“We put the concept together, built a business case, and took that business case to the state of Pennsylvania,” says plant manager Rocky Sandrella. The company, with the help of Wesex Corp., a design-build contractor based in West Middlesex, Pa., applied for $2.5 million through the state’s Redevelopment Capital Assistance Program, or RACP.
The commonwealth obliged and Reznor soon began to execute the plan.
“We started the transition in October 2011,” Sandrella recalls. The $7.5 million project called for the demolition of a 112,000-square-foot, four-story building that dated to 1916. In its place now stands a sleek, 8,000-square-foot psychometric test laboratory where the company’s products are engineered, tested and perfected.
Another 29,000 square feet of manufacturing and warehousing space were also added to the production site just across the street on McKinley Avenue. Construction ended in January and a ribbon-cutting was held July 13.
Meantime, the company found creative ways to keep business moving as the project moved forward, adds Greg Koledin, president of Wesex Corp.
“It was a very well sequenced project,” Koledin says. “There were a lot of logistics from Reznor’s standpoint of getting all this to happen without interrupting their manufacturing process.”
At one point, Sandrella recalls, “we were working out of circus tents” as construction on the new structure began. “We did not miss a beat to customers.”
Reznor, founded in Mercer, Pa., in 1888, began as a manufacturer of natural-gas heaters that would fit inside the average fireplace. By the 1970s, the company had become a well-known producer of natural-gas heating, ventilation and air-conditioning units that serve large industrial and commercial customers across the country.
But the Great Recession of 2009 forced the company to decide whether to keep the Mercer operation intact or consolidate with Thomas & Bett’s other operations. The decision to invest in Mercer enabled the creation of the parent company’s only global engineering center.
Reznor designs, fabricates and assembles all of its products on-site, Sandrella says. Compressors, coils and electrical components are purchased from the company’s vendors and fitted with specific units. “We carry four strong product lines: maps, Preeva, RDF/ADF, or direct fire, and pack units,” he reports.
Large commercial customers such as hospitals, schools, Sam’s Clubs, Walmart stores, Home Depots and manufacturing concerns in the Mahoning Valley are outfitted with Reznor units, Sandrella says.
Rich Blasko, Reznor’s engineering manager, says the new psychometric chamber can test units as large as 40 tons – the average residential air conditioning unit in the typical residence weighs about three tons.
Two 6-inch-thick insulated chambers can test the equipment at either extreme heat or cold, he explains. “As we develop this equipment, we need a chamber like this because you can run the temperature in this room up to 130 degrees, or as low as 20 degrees below zero. It allows us to simulate real-life conditions, which makes a better product for us.”
Controls and test data are monitored from a computer screen, Blasko notes. “We start from scratch. We design the product on computer, we build prototypes, completely wire it and test it,” he says.
“It’s a world-class engineering center,” says Brad Frankhouser, project manager for Desmone & Associates, Pittsburgh, the architectural firm that designed the Reznor project along with Wesex. “We worked with them to design the space and the incorporation of the lab components, and keep it within budget,” he says. “It turned out well.”
Actual manufacturing of finished products takes place across the street where automated lines crank out sheet-metal components used to build the units, reports Tony Saccol, design engineer at Reznor.
Once the material is punched and formed to size, it is transferred to a new, small processing station where foam insulation is injected between two assembled pieces of sheet metal to form a single insulated panel used on the finished unit. “It’s injected as a liquid, but expands to solid foam,” Saccol says.
Components are then moved to various stations where they’re wired, installed with compressors, and tested before they’re shipped out, says Bryan Zigo, lead supervisor at the Reznor plant.
The plant is in the midst of consolidating some work cells to produce the units more efficiently, Zigo adds, and prepare the company for a new product launch soon.
All of theses developments amount to a single result, Sandrella says, and that’s a newly energized, competitive plant that just three years ago was in the crosshairs of closing.
“With all of the new products here, the engineering on-site, we are poised to take on the future,” Sandrella says. “We see nothing but growth opportunities with the new products. I’m very comfortable where we’re at and where we’re going.”
EDITOR'S NOTE: This story appears on the front page of our MidJuly 2013 print edition.
Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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