Simon Roofing, Division Prosper with Innovation
STRUTHERS, Ohio -- There’s a good chemistry between the SR Products division of Simon Roofing and its other operations here and across the United States.
Four years ago, Simon Roofing opened its SR Products plant in Struthers, filling a need to streamline a manufacturing process that has since placed the company at the forefront of the industry, its executives say.
“Our business model is unique, and it’s this model that’s fueled our growth,” says Anthony Vross, co-owner of Simon Roofing, based in Boardman. Since it opened in 2010, SR Products has served as the hub of materials manufacturing for Simon’s 64 service centers across the country that provide repair and replacement services mostly to commercial clients.
The plant in Struthers manufactures proprietary roofing coatings and chemical applications used to restore concrete, such as urethanes, epoxy resins, latex materials and bituminous products, Vross says.
Once manufactured, these materials are shipped to job sites where workmen apply them as part of Simon’s manufacturing, distribution, contracting and service operation.
“Back in the 1990s, we were a contractor and noticed that there was a real need to become a vertically integrated company,” Vross relates.
The missing piece was developing a means to produce its own materials instead of relying on other suppliers whose reliability was uncertain to come through in a pinch. “We started to manufacture our own products,” Vross recalls. “Now, contracting is one component, manufacturing is one component, our service is a component and distribution is one component that’s all combined into Simon.”
The strategy has paid off. Through extensive research and development along with a more efficient automated production, SR Products has developed its own high-end line of roofing and concrete restoration materials.
“Everything we manufacture here is liquid,” relates Michael Dohar, senior vice president and plant manager at SR Products. Dohar helped design the new operations, housed in what had been an indoor soccer complex.
“It’s like being in a kitchen,” Dohar explains as he points to a row of six large mixing machines that whir with activity. “There’s a formula that’s set up in the form of a recipe. You add ingredients, set a specific mix time, and then package the product into pails.”
Arriving at that perfect recipe is no easy task, and the company constantly experiments with new combinations of materials and chemical variables to make its products better and stronger, Dohar says.
“Our R&D is perpetual,” he emphasizes. “One of the biggest issues is the environment. We’re constantly pushing down our VOCs [volatile organic compounds] and we have the lowest in the industry.”
More than two years ago, Simon formed a partnership with the Youngstown State University College of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. This collaboration, Dohar says, has helped the company recruit some of the brightest students in the STEM program while enabling it to use important pieces of research equipment, such as YSU’s new scanning electron microscope.
“We do troubleshooting in a fraction of the time it took in the past,” he says. “Last week, we had an issue. We took it to YSU and, within four hours, figured out where we needed to go with the product.”
The manufacturing process starts with the arrival of raw materials from suppliers, Dohar says. Dry additives such as resins are trucked in and stacked on pallets in the plant, while liquid bases are delivered directly from tanker trucks outside via a sophisticated pipeline and storage system.
“We can unload 5,000-gallon trucks directly into storage tanks, so there are no need for the old drums anymore,” Dohar says. Three tanks are positioned outside the back of the plant. They store the various solvents used in the batch chemical process. Three other large tanks – inside the rear of the building – house the liquid bases of asphalt, tar and polymers.
These large tanks are connected to the central nervous system of the manufacturing operation – a double-decked mixing line that consists of six tanks. Each has a capacity of 2,000 gallons.
Computers govern every mixing operation. Operators sit on the top deck where they punch in codes that calibrate the quantity of dry and liquid materials needed to manufacture a custom batch. On this particular afternoon, workers are making a polymer-based black flashing material used for commercial roof membranes.
“The process is safer for employees since it reduces handling,” Dohar says. “The quality, the consistency of the product is maintained, and it improves productivity.”
Once the batch is properly mixed, operators on the floor make sure the material is apportioned to each pail. The pails are then sealed and packaged for delivery.
“Our target is between 3,000 and 4,000 pails per week,” Dohar says. “Every one of our pails is quality inspected and stamped. We’ve run the tests and send another sample to our testing lab in Boardman.”
Volumes have increased steadily since the plant opened in 2010, and this year, production volume is 39% above 2013, Dohar says.
SR Products employs 12, and a second shift was recently added. Should business continue at this pace, a third shift could added, he suggests. Simon Roofing employs more than 200 in the Mahoning Valley across its divisions.
A smaller mixing room at the rear of the plant is used for custom orders that, for example, would require a specific color, Vross notes. The secondary mixing operation allows SR Products to run smaller batches of a test material without much waste before that product is ready to hit the market, Vross adds. It can also be used to serve lower-volume orders of a material until that business matures and is moved to the higher-volume mixers.
The division manufactures 84 distinct products and, Vross says, his company’s flexibility allows it to serve several markets and meet the changing demands of the industry. “This is one industry where one size doesn’t fit all,” he remarks. “The more you customize it, the more longevity you get out of it.”
SR Products’ proprietary flashing material, for example, is less labor intensive to apply, Vross says. “It’s also seamless, which is unique to the roofing industry,” he explains, noting that the material is applied as a single coat.
Moreover, these products are priced competitively because the company controls its supply chain, research and distribution operations. “When we eliminated the middleman, we were able to add a lot of good stuff in the product and take it to the marketplace,” Vross says. “We’ve put a lot of money in our labs -- over a million dollars’ investment since we opened this plant. The result is a real high-end product at a reasonable price.”
And, Vross says, customers can use these custom applications to extend the lives of commercial roofs without the headache of a costly replacement.
“Our bias is to repair, not to replace,” he says. “The goal is to restore, which is sometimes 50% less expensive.”
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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