As a powder coating manager, James Yates thinks very much like a production manager at one of the numerous fabrication shops he serves in the northern Oregon and southern Washington area.
But that’s because Yates has walked in their boots many times at N.W. Metal Fabricators in Hermiston, Oregon, where he oversees the powder coating operation and a soon-to-be new coating facility to service NWMF and many of its new outside customers.
“There’s been some really late nights and some really early mornings,” Yates says of meeting outside customer deadlines. “We base everything we have on deadlines, especially for our internal shop. We’re doing deliveries every single day out of here, and so those deadlines are really strict.”
Brought Powder Coating In-House 5 Years Ago
N.W. Metal Fabricators had been outsourcing its coating for many years before deciding to add its own batch system several years ago and adding a 25-foot oven to take care of their own projects.
Soon, they found themselves doing work for fabricators and manufacturers around the Oregon and Washington area, which put even more pressure on Yates and his team to meet not only their own deadlines but those of customers, too.
“The main reason was having control over our turnaround time and our quality,” he says. “When our outside sources weren’t willing to work late — or weren’t willing to get the job done at all — that’s when we added our own powder coating system.”
N.W. Metal Fabricators — which employs about 45 people — offers fabrication, machine shop work, and custom welding, with their main source of projects being in the food processing industries, which include potatoes, cheese, and onions.
In 2017, the company added in-house powder coating to meet its own demands and took on projects from outside companies, too.
Powder Coating Grew to $1 Million in 2022
General Manager Aaron Karlson says N.W. Metal Fabricators saw coating sales grow to $1 million in 2022. Much of that demand comes from the nearby Tri-Cities area, where Karlson says the construction and irrigation industries have a need for powder coating services.
“This is to get a presence in the Tri-Cities,” says Karlson, whose company was established in 1986 by his parents, Vendla and Kerry, who has a background of 40+ years working in the food industry, as well as a bachelor’s degree in manufacturing engineering.
The new powder coating facility will be around 30,000 square feet, Yates says, and will be done in phases.
“We are going to be adding equipment along the way, so we’ve broken it up into two sections,” he says. “We’ll be able to continue production while the second section is being built without stopping production. Then at one point, we’ll be able to take the walls down and tie it together and double our production.
Yates says the new powder coating system will be relatively large with three spray booths, as well as an automated blasting area with an initial 3-stage wash system, and plans to upgrade later for a 5-stage system.
“Each of these areas will have a bypass as well,” he says. “If material comes in and doesn’t need a blast, it will bypass the area and go straight to wash. If it’s going get blasted and not washed, it will bypass the wash station.”
Ability to Apply Multilayered Coats
Because of N.W. Metal Fabricators often do numerous multilayer coats; they will have an area for priming parts and for additional prep. Two more spray areas for top coats will follow.
“We’ve designed a very large oven that the main line will be going through,” Yates says. “We’ll also have a track that goes into the same oven to avoid spacing the oven so we can do batch jobs as well.”
That way, N.W. Metal Fabricators can get more odd shapes and sizes in there, as well. Since the automated track loops, it will allow room for batch jobs, too.
“In one of those void areas, we’ll be able to put in a 25-foot long piece, 10 feet wide, and 12-foot tall pieces,” Yates says. “It does have a track, but it will basically be like a batch setup. We’ll hang the part and spray it, and manually put it out. That will be good for really heavy or large parts that need longer or shorter cure times, and we’ll have a lot more control.”
The entire project should take 18 months to erect the buildings and install the powder coating equipment and fixtures, so N.W. Metal Fabricators is looking at a mid-2024 launch date for the new system.
And the system can’t come soon enough. Yates says that some manufacturers are coming to N.W. Metal Fabricators for powder coating services after being told by other coaters that turnaround time is four to six weeks out.
Meeting Customer Deadlines
That was the same problem that Yates says N.W. Metal Fabricators was facing this when they decided to install their own coating system five years ago.
“They had so many excuses, whether it be they couldn’t get the powder, or they are just backed up,” Yates says. “Early on, we let the customer determine the deadline. A customer can walk through the door, and if they need it the same day, we make it happen the same day.”
Of course, that adds challenges to Yates and his team, but they have worked around many of those problems.
“We don’t just do black colors on Monday or whites on Tuesday,” he says. “We do it by the deadline. Every day we have a new schedule that’s based on the deadline for the day and the next day. We miss our deadlines on occasion, but missing a deadline may be getting it to the customer on Friday instead of Thursday.”
About 30% of the current work that N.W. Metal Fabricators’ powder coating division is doing is for outside customers, and Yates expects that to grow significantly once the new facility gets up and running.
“Obviously, our number one customer is our fab shop,” he says. “But with the new facility, the goal is to have a majority of the work from outside customers.”
Visit www.nwmetalfab.com
