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But they would be only partially correct, as the mixed-use park also includes some manufacturing operations.
Since moving to Southpointe in 2003,Auma Actuators has been quietly growing its presence at 100 Southpointe Boulevard as a manufacturer of electric valve actuators.
This year, it’s been expanding the plant to handle additional orders it’s been receiving from many of its customers.
Most of the 10,000 actuators produced each year at Southpointe are sold to valve manufacturers throughout North America who finish the product to their industrial customers’ specifications. The work at Southpointe is mirrored in similar manufacturing opertaions Auma has in Germany and India.
According to Rich Oaks, Auma USA’s marketing manager, the German parent company always saw the move from its former Robinson Township, Allegheny County, site to the former 74,0000square-foot Bayside Automation plant as an opportunity for accommodating future growth.
That view has turned out to be a prescient one.
In 2003, when the company moved in, it took up about 35,000 square feet of assembly area and another 20,000 square feet in office space. For several years, it leased another 20,000 square feet of unused production space to a division of Siemans Corp.
Thanks to increased business from several industrial sectors and an order from Auma to increase U.S. production of actuators, the company is in the midst of a plant expansion that will take it from 34,000 to 50,000 square feet for production, a project that will be completed in the first quarter of 2012.
The company is spending about $1.7 million on the expansion, as well as another $1.5 million on new equipment that will be installed early next year.
“The U.S. factory expansion is needed because of increased orders and the direction from our parent company to increase manufacturing capability here,” Oaks said. The plant has three shifts a day for its machinists and two for assemblers and testing operations.
He also noted that over the past decade, many actuators made at the local plant and sold to domestic valve manufacturers have been installed in power plants in China.
“About 20 percent of what we ship ends up overseas,” he said.
The increased customer demand has meant the slow but steady addition of machinists, assemblers and both electronic and electrical technicians to the local plant. The core of the work involves taking castings from a foundry and making the surface highly polished, then installing electronic controls and a motor inside the housing.
At one time, most of the castings came from Germany, Oaks said, adding that in recent years, the plant has shown that by sourcing castings from North American producers, it can save the company considerable money.
“It costs a lot to ship them from Germany,” Oaks said, adding that the plant, which has always produced single-phase motors for the actuator market here, now finds itself also selling them to Auma’s German operation as more industries in Asia have begun using them.
When Auma moved to Southpointe eight years ago, it employed about 100 people. Today, it has 125 working there, as well as another 17 at field sales and service offices throughout North America.
But its expansion isn’t just about putting more production equipment on the shop floor, said operations manager Bob Kachur.
In addition to installing all-new HVAC and high-efficiency lighting in the entire plant, Kachur is overseeing the addition of a new two-story office within the factory floor, as well as a two-story break area that will have restrooms below.
The company, using a program from Google, was able to convert its one-dimensional shop expansion plan into a 3-D display to get an accurate depiction of the work as it takes shape before them.
A new layer of 10-inch concrete was poured to create a shop floor that can not only accommodate the placement of heavy production machinery but also enable machines to be moved, he said.
Because Auma operates on a “lean” manufacturing philosophy to gain efficiencies in the production process, Kachur and his assistants have been tasked with redesigning most of the existing plant to best accommodate the use of the new space. “We tore out many walls,” Kachur said, adding that some areas have either been flipped or moved to another area of the plant to maximize efficiency.
“The whole plant is being reorganized,” he said, adding that in the assembly area, instead of keeping a week’s worth of inventory in bins at all times, the work cells will be replenished four times a day to open up more work space, he said.
During a tour in mid-September, production workers could be seen turning out actuators next to contractors preparing the building for the expansion.
“The move of the machine shop occurred in a record shipping month,” Oaks said. Both he and Kachur praised the ability of the plant employees to keep up with demand, despite all of the changes going on around them.
As for its home in Southpointe, Oaks said the company is pleased with the decision it made nearly a decade ago.
“The management, the parent company and the employees are all delighted that we came to Southpointe,” he said. “While we had to make some modifications, we ended up with a facility that is exactly what we wanted.”
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