When you visit Allied Finishing in Grand Rapids, Michigan, you won’t find the owners of the company sitting in a corner office shuffling papers. Chances are you’ll need to venture to the shop floor to find either Brad Hirdes, Marc Hop, C.J. Nachtegall, or Jerry VanderSloot.
“We’re all hands-on kind of people,” says Hirdes, the Technical Manager who joined the other three company employees in buying Allied Finishing in 2018. The previous owners did not want to sell to an investment group but rather wanted the finishing and coating operation to stay locally owned and operated.
That gave the opportunity to Hirdes, who oversees all technical aspects of the decorative metal plating operations, and the others: Hop is the Chief Financial Officer responsible for the business operations, Nachtegall is the Sales Manager who brings in the business, and VanderSloot serves as General Manager of the operation, which employs around 260 and ships over 10 million parts per year.
“The only way we could take over ownership is if we could all keep our current jobs,” Hirdes says. “We wanted to do that because it’s what we love to do. Being an owner has added additional responsibilities and concerns, but almost all of us are on the shop floor most of the time because that is what we are about.”
Specializing in Decorative Finishes
Allied Finishing specializes in decorative finishes for mostly the automotive and motorcycle industry, and its processes included bright, black, and trivalent chrome; a nickel finish; bright copper; as well as a chrome flash, too.
The facility has three large operating lines, which also includes a new trivalent chrome line that was launched in March, just after the facility was closed down for several weeks during the COVID-19 pandemic after furloughs by General Motors, Ford and Chrysler basically ceased production for most suppliers.
Hirdes says Allied Finishing added the trivalent line in order to get ahead of the learning curve for when they might need to put it into full production as the industry tries to wean itself off of the toxic hex chrome lines and onto the eco-friendlier tri-chrome finishes.
“There’s a small learning curve when it comes to trivalent, but it hasn’t been too difficult in getting things dialed in,” he says. “We are always looking down the road to see what OEMs are going to be needing in the future so we can be ready to serve them.”
Working with Suppliers to Satisfy Customer Needs
Allied Finishing was able to turn to Haviland for help on a recent delivery issue.Customer satisfaction is key to every plating business, and the Allied Finishing team specializes in making sure their customers get their parts on time and finished as required. That includes working with their suppliers in making sure plating lines are working correctly, and the processes are going along smoothly.
Hirdes says Allied Finishing learned there was a possibility of missing shipment to a customer because of plating issues, but he was able to turn to Haviland for help.
“Haviland’s technical service people responded immediately to our plating issue,” he says. “They came in one after another, around the clock, to resolve the problem and keep our customer satisfied. Their technical service is excellent. When we need answers, Haviland shows up – any time, any day.”
Allied Finishing exclusively uses Haviland Sapphire Elite Copper Brightener System on their copper plating line; Haviland cleaning products, nickel brighteners and commodities are used on the other lines.
“Sapphire Elite Copper Brightener provides the perfect buffing finish for our intricately detailed, copper-plated parts,” Hirdes says.
Allied Finishing has a long-tenured relationship with Haviland. In fact, Hirdes says that Ron Kinne, Haviland’s technical sales representative, has been one of his mentors since he started in the business 14 years ago.
“I have learned a lot about the plating industry from him,” he says. “Haviland products are competitively priced and typically available within one day. Their excellent chemistry has played a major role in our ongoing success. They stand behind us in our commitment to producing premium decorative metal plating finishes for our customers.”
Diversifying Markets
Allied Finishing also works with many of its customers on in-house fulfillment and assembly to help streamline operations, another value-added ability that some shops don’t offer.
Going forward, the Allied Finishing management team is looking forward to possibly diversifying its markets to not be so reliant on the automotive and motorcycle industries. Hirdes says most of the automotive business has come back from the early 2020 issues with the pandemic, but not all of their programs have returned to pre-pandemic levels.
“We are always looking to diversify where we can, and looking to new industries that we can serve,” he says. “Years ago, we were very big in the gaming industry, but that seemed to have dried up. We have the equipment, tools and people to serve a lot of industries, so we’ll keep looking to see where we can be a good fit.”
Visit https://alliedfinishinginc.com/ and https://www.havilandusa.com/.
