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 ANNOUNCEMENTS
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05/24/04 |
DAFMEX
pours 1st production heat at Mexico facility. |
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FROM:
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Dameron
Newsletter - Spring 2004 & Fall 2004 |
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“Bienvenidos a Mexico y DAFMEX” (“Welcome
to Mexico and DAFMEX”) is the phrase you will be
sincerely greeted with when you walk through the entrance
of Dameron Alloy Foundries' newest production facility
in the community of Mexicali, Mexico. Located just south
of the border from Calexico, California in the Maquiladora
corridor, Dameron Alloy Foundries has renovated an existing
40,000 sq. ft. building and will call its newest production
facility — DAFMEX. The official name for the newest
Dameron operation is DAFMEX, S. de R. L. de C.V.
Over the last several years, there has been much discussion
on the development of this international operation. Those
discussions lead to feasibility studies, location visits,
building and site inspections, and hundreds of other factors
that go into this type of undertaking. The requirement
for additional manufacturing space was a key element in
the overall decision. With expansion of the corporate
facility not a possibility, the decision to locate in
Mexico became a very solid option. By mid 2003, it became
clear that a facility located just south of the border
would be ideal due to its close proximity to Compton.
From the initial project release stage, the plan was to
have the investment-casting process (injection, molding,
pouring and finishing) commencing in May 2004. This plan
remains in place with the first melt and pour scheduled
for the month of May. Dameron will transition production
to this new facility throughout the remainder of the year.
While years in the planning, the project has been gaining
speed with each week that passed. Both John Dameron (President/CEO)
and Jeff Milucky (VP of Manufacturing), have been very
active in the plant renovation, layouts, ordering, scheduling,
and the installation of equipment. Jeff has made repeated
trips to the facility to make special arrangements for
hiring of the local work force, utilities, logistics,
etc. and will continue to visit regularly throughout the
various stages of equipment installation. In the words
of John Dameron, “this operation will make Dameron
Alloy Foundries, Inc. a truly multi-national, multi-facility
organization specializing in the production of near net
shaped investment castings and capable of meeting our
customer’s needs.”
This new operation is being built to duplicate the exact
production systems and conditions that are found both
in the company’s Compton, CA. and Louisville,KY.
plants. In some regards, it will “mirror” those
operations. It will be able to pour and process many of
the same alloys and castings that the Compton facility
currently handles. It will have stateof- the-art multi-station
wax injection equipment, house 6th generation robotic
dipping mechanisms, contain nearly 550 linear feet of
drying conveyor, and have powerful tilt induction furnace
melting capacity. The operation will also contain various
automatic casting cleaning and custom-fabricated finishing
equipment designed and built at Dameron.
DAFMEX will offer the same advantages to Dameron’s
customers as do the company’s other production facilities
superior quality, fast turn around lead times and competitive
pricing. All customer service, sales, engineering and
accounting functions will be handled out of the corporate
headquarters in Compton. Cast products produced at DAFMEX
can be transferred to the Compton facility for any additional
or special processing work required, such as machining.
Invoicing will occur as usual from the Compton accounting
offices.
Oscar Espinosa will oversee the DAFMEX facility as the
plant manager. His complete knowledge and understanding
of the investment casting operation has been gained over
the last 11 years as an employee, supervisor, and manager
at Dameron. In addition to Oscar, the staff at DAFMEX
will be Mapy Villa (Finishing/Shipping Supervisor), Jorge
Macias (Investment Department Supervisor) and Gabriel
Fernandez (Pouring Floor Supervisor). They have all transferred
from the Compton operation. Together, they have all pledged
that they will support the customers’ need for quality
products delivered to them on time, every time. As stated
well by Oscar, “we are all very excited about being
able to produce our customer’s castings in Mexico”.
To echo Oscar’s comment, everyone at Dameron is extremely
excited about our newest casting operation and we are
looking forward to serving our customers with quality
products from this state-of-the-art facility.
As the production capacity develops at DAFMEX, more information
will be made available through future newsletter articles. |
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CLICK
HERE to read related article
from Fall 2004 Newsletter
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DOWNLOAD NEWSLETTER
(PDF) - SPRING 2004 |
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