An overview of a metal fabricator’s relocation

Moving to a new facility while also trying to maintain production and delivery commitments can prove to be a great challenge. EVS Metal was able to accomplish that with its recent move to a new building in Stroudsburg, Pa. Zargon Design/E+/Getty Images

In 2011, EVS Metal opened its fourth precision fabrication facility in East Stroudsburg, Pa. The 120,000-sq.-ft. building had ceilings tall enough to allow the use of industrial cranes, which were necessary to move extra-large workpieces commonly produced for use by the solar, construction, oil and gas, and transportation industries.

Company management selected the location for both its proximity to EVS customers and its relative proximity to the company’s other two facilities in New Hampshire and in New Jersey. (The Riverdale, N.J., location also serves as the company’s headquarters.)

The Pennsylvania building looked to be the perfect fit for the company’s growing business.

Stay or Go?

For nearly a decade, the East Stroudsburg location served its purpose. In mid-2019, however, EVS’ leadership began questioning the efficiency and utility of its Pennsylvania operations. For one, the building itself needed serious updating to be brought up to the standards of the company’s other facilities. These renovations would be a massive and expensive project to undertake.

Management also had a much larger question for which it needed an answer: Was the facility simply too big in general? Was all of that space even able to be reconfigured in a way that would fit the company’s plans for future growth in Pennsylvania? And, given the potential challenges of renovation, at what point would it make more sense to simply move to a new building and location entirely?

Over the next year, EVS’ co-founders, President Scott Berkowitz and Vice President Joe Amico, along with Wayne Bruck, the general manager of the Pennsylvania business, set out to answer all of these questions.

“Our East Stroudsburg location was very large, which, in theory, gave us plenty of potential opportunities to physically expand our capabilities, like adding a fourth automated powder coating line to our overall company operations,” Amico said. “However, saying it would require a lot of work and investment to improve the building and rework the layout would have been an understatement.”

Bruck agreed.

“East Stroudsburg was 120,000 sq. ft., and we were only using 30,000. Were we really going to invest millions in the other 90,000 sq. ft. of space that wasn’t purpose-built in any way for our needs? Plus, with 20- and 30-ft.-high ceilings, depending on the area being used, just heating it in the winter cost more than the building’s annual property taxes,” he said.

“Overall, there were a number of inefficiencies in the current operation that needed to be addressed but seemed to have no perfect answer,” Berkowitz added. “So, after considerable time and research, we eventually came to the realization that it would make more sense to move from our current location to one better suited to our plans for the company’s growth.”

EVS Metal greatly expanded its laser cutting capabilities in the move to its new facility in Stroudsburg, Pa.

Looking for a New Home

Once it was decided that a move was necessary, it became a matter of finding the right location and the right building.

“We wanted to be as close to our original facility as possible so as not to inconvenience our current staff with a longer commute,” Amico said. “However, finding a building that suited our needs within that short radius—we honestly weren’t sure how easy that was going to be.”

Because of that reality, the company did consider new construction, but a careful analysis quickly made it clear that buying an existing building in good shape would be the smarter financial option.

As it turns out, finding their new home was easier than they had expected. Right as they decided that a move was necessary, a suitable option became available.

“We ended up right down the road in Stroudsburg,” Bruck said. “The building and location had everything we wanted: a more manageable footprint [48,000 sq. ft.]; easier access for our customers [directly off of I-90]; a similar commute for our employees; and a bright, open interior that could be configured with operational efficiency front-of-mind.”

Besides the better potential functionality the new space provided, it also offered the chance to create a far more attractive and comfortable working environment.

“It’s not often that you would be able to call a metal fabrication facility beautiful, but the new building is certainly more inviting than our original location,” Berkowitz added.

He forgot to mention that the PA facility was at one point occupied by one of EVS’ original customers that had internal fabrication and machining operations. Amico added that he was very familiar with the location because he had visited the one-time customer at that same address many times in the past.

Timing and Planning the Move

Although EVS was lucky to find its new Pennsylvania home quickly, the process of moving facilities turned out to be slightly more complicated.

“Our original date to finish the renovations and have the new facility up and running was late 2021,” Bruck, said with a laugh. “We may have overestimated how quickly and easily we would be able to wrangle contractors and move machines and other equipment while still operating our original location smoothly in order to ensure our customers still received the level of service we are used to providing.

EVS Metal consolidated its machining operations for its northern locations at its new Stroudsburg, Pa., facility.

“Plus, this project started in the middle of the supply chain slowdown,” he continued. “Attempting to open up a new facility is one thing, but trying to retrofit and renovate it for our needs when so many common building materials were becoming scarce or exorbitantly expensive was something else entirely.”

Bruck explained that for almost a solid year, and even extending to today in some circumstances, just about every item that EVS could have normally procured within a few days—copper wire, sheetrock, and electrical boxes, for example—had a one- to four-month lead time and a price tag that was three times higher than it was just 12 months prior. Attempting to plan around that was easily the most difficult part of the move, according to Bruck.

Amico agreed.

“We definitely had to alter our expectations around the timing of the move and what it meant for it to be truly complete. But at the same time, our team handled all of the delays and changes to the original plan exceptionally well, even when it required them to change course mid-stream. Everyone working on the project really rose to the occasion.”

Eventually, a soft opening was planned for February 2022, with the understanding that while most of the plans for the facility would be up and running at that time, a portion would continue to be a work in progress. This was primarily because of the various constraints and timing issues created by transitioning the operation of the old facility to the new, while still fulfilling all of the in-process orders promised to EVS’ customers within that time frame.

CNC Machining Consolidation

Besides purchasing a building better suited to EVS’ current needs, the new facility also was selected with an eye toward the company’s future growth. One of the most important initiatives that the new Pennsylvania location would be expected to handle was the consolidation of all machining operations from its northern locations.

“Because all of our locations are within a four-hour drive, it didn’t make sense to continue fragmenting our machining operations the way we were,” Amico said. “Consolidating everything into our Pennsylvania facility allowed us to create a machining department capable of completing almost any process, using the latest and most modern equipment available, with highly trained employees who specialize in setting up and running complex machining jobs.

“Plus, it created efficiencies in the management of our machining operations,” he continued. “Whereas in the past, we would have had three supervisors overseeing smaller machining operations in three different locations—on top of other departments for which they were responsible—we were now able to create a single position responsible for only machining.”

Capabilities Expansion

Besides the machining consolidation, EVS also planned to expand its other metal fabrication capabilities by adding more than $3.5 million in capital investments to the new Pennsylvania facility. Some of the technology added includes an AMADA EMZRT turret punching machine with setup and material handling automation, a tube cutting laser, a 6,000-W fiber laser, a 1,500-W fiber tube laser, three Haas machining centers (two VF2s and one VF4), an AMADA FBD 1253 robotic press brake, an AMADA HDS 1030 robotic press brake, and a fourth automated powder coating line.

But with all of these new machines and capabilities being added to the Pennsylvania facility’s current lineup, new challenges emerged, including how to best organize and lay out the shop floor for optimal part and job flow.

EVS Metal added a fourth powder coating line to the corporate family with the new line it installed in its newest facility.

“Thankfully, the new facility is much more compact than our previous location,” says Bruck. “It naturally leant itself to a more lean-influenced shop floor, especially in terms of moving parts between workstations. The resulting material movement and overall workflow are considerably more efficient than they were before.”

And of course, adding new machines and processes meant spending considerable time training current employees on the technology as well as investing in finding, adding, and training qualified new talent for the facility.

“Honestly, the timing of the move, in today’s job market, could have been a disaster,” Berkowitz said. “The shortage of skilled workers and the number of open jobs in manufacturing across the U.S. definitely did not make it easy to staff up a new and growing facility. But we did it, and we’re proud to have recruited and retained some of the finest talent in the industry.”

The Result

“Really, you have to see it to believe it,” said EVS’ Pennsylvania sales engineer, Jim Smith. “It’s completely unlike most manufacturing facilities. For instance, there’s a huge row of windows built right into the ceiling that run the entire length of the building that act as skylights.”

To accentuate the natural light coming into the facility, EVS management chose a light-colored epoxy for the floors and bright white for all of the walls.

In the end, more efficient part processing was the real evidence that a move to a new facility was the right thing to do.

“One of the immediate benefits was a better workflow due to the revisions we made to the job shop floor, which allowed us to quickly increase our shipping volume and therefore better serve our customers,” Amico said.

It’s also given EVS more manufacturing options. The new powder coat line is integrated in the way it connects naturally with the new workflow.

“Because a powder coat line essentially becomes part of the building post-installation, we had to be absolutely sure that the location we chose would be able to accommodate the line without issue, and we knew immediately that the new facility fit the bill. Having the line in-house now allows us to cut lead times and better ensure a high level of quality with any powder coated product that goes out our door,” Bruck said.

What’s Next for EVS?

EVS Metal already is looking at expanding the Pennsylvania location by purchasing the building behind it. That would give the company an additional 38,000 sq. ft. of manufacturing space.

Meanwhile, that’s not the only place where expansion is occurring. The company’s Texas location is in the planning stages of moving to a new, larger space, and is in the middle of finalizing its design on property already purchased.

EVS also is expanding its New Hampshire facility, a project that is due to break ground either late this year or early in 2023. The project will add about 25,000 sq. ft., allowing the location to nearly double its current production footprint.

Sometimes a metal fabricating company stays where it is; sometimes it chooses to go elsewhere. As EVS Metal has learned, figuring out how best to serve customers is often the most important guiding principle in trying to decide whether to stay or go.