May/June 1989
“Invest in your company … invest in good equipment … and don’t be afraid to invest in good people.”
The president of a once-big, now-tremendous processing, manufacturing, and brokerage enterprise describes his business philosophy and, with other members of his management team, the results of his company’s recent Can. $24-million expansion.
By Gerry Romano
Gerry Romano is editor of Scrap Processing and Recycling.
One company that is not to be missed in profiling scrap processing and recycling businesses is simple to drive past--and I did. About an hour too late, Gary Mintz of American Iron & Metal Company (1969) Inc. (AIM), says, "We look like an insurance company." AIM's new building, designed not only with the operational needs of the firm in mind but with concern for community acceptance, houses along with administrative offices a 66,000-square-foot foundry and a 98,000-square-foot nonferrous facility and blocks a passerby's view of an 800,000-square-foot steel yard.
The Montreal-based enterprise completed the move to its current 30-acre site about a year ago from a 3-acre site approximately eight miles away. The expansion just about tripled in size each of the three divisions.
The new plant was designed by Pierre Duhaime, engineer and project manager, and Herbert Black, president of American Iron & Metal, in consultation with the division heads. Fueling the expansion plans was Black's belief in three ingredients for business success: "One is to invest in your company; it shows your people that you have confidence in the business. You must also invest in good equipment. … And another thing is to treat your employees well--don't be afraid to invest in good people."
Twenty-four million Canadian dollars later, Black had a highly functional and spaciously laid out, worker-friendly plant with more than enough space to allow AIM's involvement in new business opportunities.
Room to Expand
The dealer market is one American Iron & Metal just entered, according to Mintz, who is purchasing manager for the firm. AIM purchases small, mixed loads of metals from dealers and processes them for large shipments.
"There was no space before to handle this scrap," says Mintz. With the added room to accommodate the materials, he says, "we've been tremendously impressed with the dealer business."
Expansion also meant more room for the brokerage aspect of AIM's business. Says Mintz, "We were always brokers in steel, always very big in that area. But we're now also doing a lot of brokerage business in the nonferrous area," something that wasn't possible in the tight quarters of the former facility.
In the planning stages is another business segment: aluminum and copper chopping. Ronald Black, secretary/treasurer for the firm, foresees this to be a "sizable operation, one that should increase sales by approximately [Can.] $25 million a year."
Innovatively Equipped
Production efficiency is apparent throughout the equipment-packed plant.
A particularly efficient operation, according to Duhaime, is found in the nonferrous division. An Atlas crane with a grapple attached feeds aluminum scrap into a highly automated Harris HRB-10 baler capable of producing one bale every three minutes, each weighing 1,500 to 3,000 pounds.
Downtime due to inclement weather is never a concern since this operation takes place indoors--the ceiling of the facility is 34 feet above. This ceiling creates another benefit: impurities that may be released into the air are drawn up higher, to exhaust fans, then processed in a baghouse.
The high ceiling seemed worth the expense to the plant planners for another indoor operation: shipping and receiving. Semitrailers enter the building through four doors for loading and unloading at 12 docks.
A new United furnace stands in the nonferrous division. Purchased for irony aluminum, it is capable of producing secondary sows of 1,000 pounds. Also new is a Kevex analyzer for high-temperature alloys.
Duhaime points out the two storage rooms in the division, which keep aluminum apart from copper, stainless, and high-temperature alloys. "There is no possible mix between the aluminum and the other metals," he says, "plus it's easy for the traders to see what is available for sale."
Firewalls separate the nonferrous operations from the foundry. Here five furnaces are dedicated to lead refining. There are two automatic casting machines for lead and zinc. The lead-casting area includes 14 kettles for making alloys for the electronics, jewelry, printing, plumbing, and radiator industries.
In the zinc area are five furnaces for making zinc die-cast alloys, used for plating and corrosion protection.
While this equipment takes up a lot of space, there's still plenty open in the foundry. "We have about 10,000 square feet left," says Duhaime, "which we can use to expand."
Expansion of the steel yard necessitated the purchase of a locomotive crane. "With 800,000 square feet," the project manager explains, "we need something that can go fast from one part of the yard to another." This Ohio locomotive is just one in a fleet of new cranes. Included are two electric gantry cranes, one hydraulic, and seven crawlers.
Also outside are a 1,000-ton Harris shear and a 500-ton Harris shear.
Completely separate from all other yard operations is a garage for repair of the company's 1,200 rolloff and load lugger containers. It's also separate from the garage used to maintain the fleet of 30 trucks. "At the old plant, the boxes and trucks were garaged together," Duhaime says, "and since repairing boxes makes so much noise, everybody had to suffer."
Investing in Employee Happiness
Needless suffering from noise must have been on Herbert Black's list of unacceptable conditions at the new facility.
What is acceptable (and apparent) is a pleasant and attractive work environment-something Gary Mintz says is a carryover from the old plant, but an improved carryover because of additional space. Aside from the workplace amenities, which include a soon-to-be-completed gym, Mintz points out that employees are well rewarded for their performance. "Everybody shares to their own degree in the profits of the company."
Ronald Black puts it more bluntly: "We just compensate our people very well. This keeps them from looking for other jobs; and it keeps them happy within their own environment."
Keeping people happy, according to Herbert Black, includes keeping them informed. Mentioning regular meetings with employees at all levels, he says, "It's important to share how the company is doing ... not to hide things, not to be afraid to let everybody know that you're making money, that you're successful. Even the guy who's working the crane or working the shear, the hourly paid employee--I don't hesitate to tell him exactly where the company is at the moment and where I feel it's going.
"The sky's the limit" to where American Iron & Metal is going, according to its president. Sales last year hit 180 million Canadian dollars; the projection for 1989 is Can. $200 million.
One manager's answer to a question about a five-year sales projection was "Ask Herb that. He'll probably tell you a billion dollars. I wouldn't be surprised." •