Permasteelisa Cladding

Clad tidingsJust ten years after entering the US market with its interior products, Permasteelisa Cladding has become a top provider of customized exterior paneling. Keith Regan talks to the operations manager about the companyÔÇÖs service-first approach. A decade ago, already a well-established force in overseas markets, Italian company Permasteelisa Cladding Technologies arrived in the United States. Its main domestic product at the time was interior and floor furniture used to rapidly makeover the interior of national retail chain stores such as Casual Corner and Vespa Boutiques. In 2000, the company began to make moves to bring its aluminum framed exterior paneling products to the US. Since then, it has grown to 1,000 employees and overall annual sales over $400 million in the United States. Parent company Permasteelisa Group is a $1.2 billion a year concern with 20 manufacturing facilities and operations in 27 countries. The growth didnÔÇÖt happen overnight or without some hardships. ÔÇ£We were very well known all over the world by construction industry playersÔÇöarchitects, general contractors and developersÔÇöfrom our presence in other markets,ÔÇØ says operations manager Carlo Eisner de Eisenhof. But the company was forced to make some pricing concessions to win work early on in the new market, and was careful to see every project through to the end. ÔÇ£Our customers came to understand that we would be there to the endÔÇöthat even if the numbers didnÔÇÖt look good for us, weÔÇÖd see a project through.ÔÇØBefore long, however, Permasteelisa had begun to establish a strong reputation for not only top-quality products but also a focus on service and an ability to create custom solutions for customers. ÔÇ£At some points we were even growing too fast,ÔÇØ he adds. ÔÇ£There were times when we had to stop and catch our breath and consolidate.ÔÇØPermasteelisa had growing pains in the personnel area along the way, too. The company seeded its US operations by culling key people from other global locationsÔÇöEisner de Eisenhof himself had worked in the London facility. Hiring locally had its false startsÔÇödealing with construction unions was largely a new experience for PermasteelisaÔÇöbut now the company is recognized for its innovations and as a stable and growing employer. The company continues to evolve and grow, adding new facilities in Montreal and Chicago, Miami and in California to augment work done at its Windsor, Connecticut headquarters and main production facility, where it now has 400,000 square feet of manufacturing and assembly space. The Windsor plant has undergone dramatic recent changes as wellÔÇöchange driven by the special needs of new buildings going up in lower Manhattan. Within the past two years, the Windsor facility was expanded from two lines to three along with the addition of new CNC machines and additional storage spaceÔÇöan expansion aimed at accommodating a surge of new work won by Permasteelisa to help clad the exterior of high-rise towers being built as part of the reconstruction of the area in and around Ground Zero in New York City.The first of those projects (known as Site 26 in the Battery Park area) had specifications that called for larger than typical panels, some measuring 11 feet by 18 feet, compared to standard dimensions of 5 x 13, that were also several times more resistant to bomb blasts than traditional blast resistant exterior cladding products. To build the 5,000-pound glass and aluminum panels meant dedicating an entire production line to the project for more than a year and a halfÔÇöand by adding a third line, the company ensured additional work could be accommodated at the same time. New machinery was required to handle the oversized and overweight panels as well as additional storage area to handle the 4,300 panels built during that time frame. ÔÇ£Now we have that capability for other projects and weÔÇÖre negotiating a lot of projects from this facility. Ninety percent of what we do here now is focused on New York at the moment. ThereÔÇÖs a lot going on.ÔÇØ As redevelopment projects around the former World Trade Center site move forward, the company is actively pursuing new opportunities. It built panels that have wrapped the new building known as Seven World Trade Center and the new Towers 2, 3 and 4 are currently still in the planning stages. Permasteelisa can sell not only its products but also its ability to work with customers to suit their needs and to develop innovative solutions when needed for installing panels. For instance, the larger size panels cannot be hoisted easily with a regular crane and are difficult to store on a job site. Instead, the panels will be taken directly from delivery trucks and moved with the help of a system developed with a partner company that will use a track-based monorail-style system to move the panels to where they need to be.ÔÇ£Owners and developers come to us because they know we can deliver something others cannot deliver. If they need to come up with new or bigger or more durable panelsÔÇöthey come to us because at the end of the day, we can come up with solutions that very few other people can match.ÔÇØ Compared to the situation it was in seven years ago, the US division has come full circle and is now often the company of choice. ÔÇ£WeÔÇÖre in a position where we can be selective now,ÔÇØ says Eisner de Eisenhof. The companyÔÇÖs reputation already extends from coast to coast and around the world. Permasteelisa cladding is found on the work of architect Frank GehryÔÇÖs Experience Music Project building in Seattle, Washington and his Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain.The company has seen some work from re-cladding projects, as older buildings are retrofitted with new panels that help keep water out and make buildings safer and extend their useful lives, but that remains a relatively small part of its overall workload. ÔÇ£Right now, given the work we see in new construction, the next five to six years look like more growth ahead.ÔÇØ Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} *┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á *┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á *   ┬áFirst published February 2008