Permasteelisa North America


The public face┬áIn less than ten years, Permasteelisa has grown from nothing in North America to a leader in its field, thanks to an impressive international reputation, as Alan T Swaby learns. The staggering amount of rebuilding around the World Trade Center in New York City has kept many curtain wall suppliers busy. But the extra demand thrown up by new building regulations, anxious to provide greater protection against bomb blasts, has meant Permasteelisa North America needed to increase production capacity by 30 percent.Although PermasteelisaÔÇÖs presence in North America is not much more than a decade old, on the international scene it is a truly enormous player, found wherever prestigious high-rise buildings are going up. As such, it was already busy in London when the IRA bombing campaign was at its height and helped develop a new generation of bomb-resistant cladding, putting it at the forefront of this regrettable new technology.┬á ÔÇ£A bomb blast,ÔÇØ says vice president of operations Carlo Eisner de Eisenhof, ÔÇ£is taken first by the glass, which then transfers the energy to the frame, the fittings and finally to the supporting structure. ItÔÇÖs difficult to produce something that will resist the blast, but itÔÇÖs even more difficult to do it in a cost-effective way, because over-engineering would make building costs prohibitive.ÔÇØThen, of course, the World Trade Center is such a high-profile location that architects are pulling out all the stops. ÔÇ£The best are always trying to push the envelope,ÔÇØ says Eisner, ÔÇ£and they know they can work with us to produce exactly what they want. After all, we have probably already done many jobs for the leading firms at some site or other around the globe.ÔÇØA glance at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao demonstrates the lengths architects will go to in order to make a statement and how far Permasteelisa can go to accommodate them. Even on more conventional glass cladding, the goalposts have moved. Where once panels were typically 13 feet by 5 feet, itÔÇÖs now not uncommon to find panels anywhere up to 10 feet in width.PermasteelisaÔÇÖs approach to cladding design is to eliminate on-site assembly. Instead, panels are put together in the factory ready for installation on the building superstructure. This approach naturally speeds up building work, but it does place demands on the accuracy of the panels andÔÇöjust as importantÔÇötheir ability to accommodate building irregularities.As such, operatives on the shop floor are chosen for their ability to work accurately. Tolerances are minute: less than 0.1 inch over a 15-foot panel. Considerable care needs to be taken at all stages but particularly when preparing the frame for the glass. Nothing can compromise the integrity of the panels. A failure 100 floors up would be a catastrophe, therefore the aluminum frame needs to be properly cleaned and primed and the silicon caulking applied without the hint of a void.Eisner also makes the point that Permasteelisa never leaves a site until the job is 100 percent satisfactorily finished. ÔÇ£Sometimes disputes arise about the scope of a contract,ÔÇØ he says, ÔÇ£but that remains a separate issue. The project will be finished, and then the rights and wrongs can be sorted out later. Our growth in North America is based on our reputationÔÇöour greatest asset.ÔÇØAnd growth has been spectacular. Doors opened in 1997 with just three employees when Permasteelisa began supplying interior fittings to an international client based in Windsor, Connecticut. When exterior work was added three or four years later, there was no good reason to move from WindsorÔÇöstrategically placed between the two big markets of New York and Boston. Today, there are more than 1,000 employees and additional factories in Miami, Chicago and Montreal, as well as a west coast office.About a year ago, Eisner initiated a drive to improve productivity at the 350,000-square-foot Windsor facility, which is the most advanced, featuring three fully automated production lines for standard components and a separate work area for non-standard panels. A large array of CNC machines of varying degrees of sophistication take care of cutting, drilling and milling, and machining was one of the areas where improvements were thought possible. ÔÇ£Over the years weÔÇÖve taken over more and more space under a shared roof,ÔÇØ he explains. ÔÇ£As such, the layout hadnÔÇÖt so much been planned as simply happened.ÔÇØInitially, with the help of consultants, the plant undertook a series of kaizen campaigns, where quick changes could be made with immediate effect. Two members of the workforce have been given permanent responsibility for continuing the process and report monthly on what is being planned and what has been achieved. Bit by bit, the layout has taken on a more streamlined appearance, with raw material entering at the right place and finished components feeding directly onto the production line. Although there is still three or four monthsÔÇÖ work ahead of them, machining efficiency is estimated at 20 percent better.The second area that needed attention was inventory management. Permasteelisa buys specially extruded aluminum extrusions in a bewildering array of sizes and shapes. Problems had occasionally occurred when the manually controlled inventory claimed that components existed but they couldnÔÇÖt be found when needed on the assembly line.┬áÔÇ£WeÔÇÖve adopted a process of bar-coding everything that comes into the factory,ÔÇØ says Eisner. ÔÇ£It hasnÔÇÖt been as easy as it sounds, and the transition created as many problems as it solved. But inventory is key to staying on schedule, and we can now see the benefits of having a much more accurate system. Product shortages are largely a thing of the past, and the money tied up in stock is being reduced monthly.ÔÇØPermasteelisa knows its products are sometimes not as cheap as some competitorsÔÇÖÔÇöand particularly at the moment, when businesses are cutting margins to keep factories busy. But it also believes that past growth and future success depend on its reputation for quality and ability to deliver. ÔÇ£After all,ÔÇØ says Eisner, ÔÇ£very few people see inside a building, but the whole world can see the exterior, which has to be perfect since it is the public face of the owner, the architect and the supplier.ÔÇØ  ÔÇô Editorial research by Tim Conlon┬á