NEWS
Trutech Industries to expand Springfield facility
By Elaine Morris Roberts, Staff Writer
5:59 PM Thursday, August 19, 2010
SPRINGFIELD — A local heat treating company has announced it will expand its facility to accommodate increased sales and to provide better long-term support to its customers.
Trutech Industries’ Springfield facility, 4700 Gateway Blvd. inside PrimeOhio Industrial Park, will add a new 55,000 square-foot building to its existing 79,000 square feet of space. The new facility will house new heat treatment furnaces, according to Vice President Joe Gummel.
The project will be a “substantial investment,” he said, but Gummel declined to attach a total dollar amount to construction and equipment.
The Springfield facility, which mainly serves customers in the automotive and appliance industries, opened in 1990 and expanded in 1998. It now supports about 165 employees and has added about 25 jobs this year.
“We’ve been able to add those jobs due to increased sales,” said Gummel.
Owned by Nihon Parkerizing Co., Ltd. of Tokyo, Trutech established its Ohio operations in 1988 with a chemical treatment processes facility at 4795 Upper Valley Pike in Urbana.
That facility presently supports about 85 employees.
As with many manufacturing companies across the country, Trutech experienced a decline customers during the later part of 2008 and much of 2009.
“We reduced (employment rolls) some due to the economy, but have been able to add most of those back,” Gummel said.
The jobs lost were filled by temporary workers; no full-time employees were laid off and some jobs are new positions.
“There has been some return of customer volume. ...We are seeing some improvement, but things have not returned to pre-recession levels in 2007,” Gummel said.
The addition to the Springfield facility is being made, in part, to give Trutech the capacity to increase its business, which may bring more work to town.
Current staffing is sufficient to operate the new equipment at current levels of production.
“It is unclear at this time whether the expansion will allow for more jobs to be added. It really depends upon economic conditions — it depends on the volume of business that comes in,” Gummel said.
Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0371 or elroberts@coxohio.com.