ESAB Opens New Flux Plant

ESAB Welding & Cutting Products (Hanover, PA) has added a new flux plant to its filler metal manufacturing facility in Hanover, PA, providing the company with a significant upgrade in manufacturing capacity. The company already operates one flux plant, which was opened in 2002. The addition of the new, larger flux plant, which opened in June, will allow ESAB to produce many of its bonded subarc fluxes in North America, supplementing the domestic demand with products produced in other ESAB facilities.

"This facility will enable ESAB to improve management of its flux product line and maintain better control of inventory and delivery, as well as control costs, particularly freight costs,? said Chris Depew, product business manager for the flux product line.

According to Depew, the plant features the latest technology including lean manufacturing and will produce a broad range of products for a variety of market segments including shipbuilding, wind towers, structural steel construction and general fabrication. ?This plant complements our solid wire manufacturing plant in Ashtabula, Ohio,? Depew said.

The new plant went through extensive engineering, quality and applications testing to validate that the quality of the flux produced at the new plant was identical to what customers were receiving previously from Europe. ?The product went through full process and quality validation, in-house testing, and extensive testing at our customers? facilities to ensure that there is no difference from fluxes produced at our other facilities,? Depew said. ?Our fluxes are produced in an ASME-approved plant and ESAB also holds approvals from the American Bureau of Shipping, Lloyd?s, Det Norske Veritas, and the Canadian Welding Bureau. All of ESAB?s manufacturing facilities around the world hold ISO-9000, ISO-14000 and ISO-18000 approvals."

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