Tuesday, December 23, 2014STONEBORO, Pa. -- Few would suspect that the unassuming company tucked away along a gravel road in northern Mercer County, Pa., is one of only two in the United States that makes a very large product.
“We are one of two manufacturers in the country of clamshell dredges,” says Earl Mook, marketing manager at Supreme Manufacturing Inc., which sits just off Interstate 79 here.
The company, established in 1990, was created in response to a growing demand in the aggregate industry for large clamshell dredges and conveyor systems used to mine gravel, sand and rock from the bottoms of lakes and ponds.
Supreme Manufacturing’s dredges are akin to complex floating cranes. The structures are equipped with an array of steel girders, pontoons and “clamshell” buckets -- so named because they open and close much like a clamshell so they can bite into lake beds to capture the material, Mook says.
The products are customed designed for customers who do business throughout the country, Mook says. And the dredge equipment the company manufactures has the capability of mining to depths of more than 200 feet, far deeper than conventional methods, he adds.
“We’ve sent dredges to inland lakes that have been closed for several years because the conventional equipment such as backhoes, excavators and drag lines have dug as deep as they can,” Mook says. “We build several different sizes of machines, and it’s based on the productivity that the customer needs.”
Dredges differ in size and function, and the equipment that’s built depends entirely on the customer’s operations and needs, Mook says.
These machines, designed as floating dredge operations, are sold to aggregate companies across North America, one of which is less than a mile down the road from Supreme, Mook says. There, a large dredge the company manufactured for H&H Materials Inc. sits atop the water in a small lake, not working this December day because of the cold weather.
“We can only run these dredges in weather when it’s above freezing temperatures,” Mook says. That’s because material the conveyor system transports – in this case a belt conveyor that stretches nearly one mile into H&H’s aggregate processing plant -- could freeze onto the belt and clog the system. “We can’t run when it’s extremely cold,” he says, “so we’re limited in this area.”
This particular dredge uses a clamshell bucket that can hold 10 cubic yards of material at a time, or about 15 tons, Mook says. Afloat, the entire structure weighs about 400 tons, and on average, a clamshell dredge this size can cost $4 million, he says.
Although costly upfront, these dredges can result in efficiencies for customers that over time amortize the initial investment, Mook says. “One of these machines can last 30 or 40 years” if maintained properly.
Moreover, this particular dredge requires just one operator per shift, and has the capability of running 20 hours a day.
A cable system that’s anchored onshore moves and guides the dredge to various parts of the lake to mine a particular material, Mook says.
The accompanying conveyor system can also deliver material more cost-efficiently to the plant, says Adam Wielobob, Supreme’s operations manager.
“You can grab the material out of the ground and place it on the conveyor system,” a portion of which is supported by pontoons over water, he says. “The next time another human touches this is at the plant after its been segregated into piles. We’re taking out a lot of handling with the material.”
The use of a conveyance system is more efficient in that it bypasses the use of trucks to transport the material directly to the plant.
Supreme Manufacturing designs, fabricates and builds all of the components used in these types of dredge operations. A single project, Mook says, can take as much as a year to complete.
The company also erects and installs the operation on-site, and provides training to dredge operators. And Supreme Manufacturing enjoys a sizeable business by refurbishing older equipment for reuse, and dismantling and relocating dredge operations for customers.
“We’re busy,” Mook says. “We’re currently building a machine right now and we have good prospects for two more machines that will keep us steady for the next year-and-a-half.”
On a cold December morning, Supreme Manufacturing welders, fitters and grinders are at work preparing components for the next order. In one section of the plant, fabricator Rich Dunham grinds a part bound for the dredge’s conveyance system.
“These are pedestals,” he says. “We’re just fitting them up right now, and we’ll put them together later.”
The company employs 15 at its Stoneboro plant, but that number could increase to 30 during full production schedules, Mook says. Recently, the company hired a new slate of employees to accommodate what looks to be a busy 2015.
In another section of the plant, some of these new employees are working on larger parts that are integral to the operation of a dredge. Welder John Knox, for example, was hired in October and is performing grinding work on a “possum belly,” a metal hopper that collects undersized materials from the dredging operation.
Operations manager Wielobob, a recent hire himself, points to other components, such as a “grizzly,” which serves as a large screen to filter out some of the larger pieces of rock. “The clamshell will open above this, and the smaller parts will fall through into a hopper,” he explains, and then be transferred to the conveyor. The larger stone slides into a rock barge moored alongside the dredge, which then transports that material to the shore.
In addition to more new hires, the company intends to purchase new equipment and finish an expansion that would nearly double the size of the 14,400-square-foot plant, part of a $1 million capital investment planned for 2015. The expansion is to make room for more manufacturing space and a new paint shop.
“We’re putting it into building expansion and equipment purchases,” Mook says, in particular a larger overhead crane and a new cutting machine slated to replace equipment still in use but dated. “There’s a lot of new technology,” he says. “So to make these parts more precise, we’re putting in this new cutting machine.”
The aggregate business across the country appears to be on the rebound, Mook says, pointing to future projects related to replacing worn infrastructure in the United States, especially bridges and roads. “All of the infrastructure in the country, these materials have to come from the aggregate business,” he relates. “This all has to be mined.”
Pictured: Adam J. Wielobob is operations manager at the plant. Earl G. Mook is marketing manager.
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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