FFKM O-RING AS-568 ALL SIZE NEWARK, Delaware – DuPont Kalrez’s business is growing, and now the company is investing to keep up.
The company will move production from its 60,000-square-foot facility to a new facility. The Newark site was moved to an adjacent site twice the size, and $45 million was allocated for the move and new equipment. The new plant will be equipped with the latest equipment and advanced production facilities.
The plant employs 200 people and employment has grown by about 10 percent over the past three years. DuPont expects to add another 10 percent during the transition project.
“We’ve had very strong growth over the past 10 years, and especially over the past three or four years,” said Randy Stone, president of DuPont’s transportation and advanced polymers business unit, which has now been renamed DuPont and will eventually be spun off. to an independent listed company.
“Revenue growth in the mid-teens. We continue to expand this product line, and it is one of the fastest growing in any portfolio. We have reached the point where we can see ours.” “Delaware Existing site we didn’t have enough space. We redesigned the existing site as much as possible and we really needed more room to grow.”
The new facility will expand the Kalrez brand of perfluoroelastomer products in line with DuPont’s projected business growth to better serve customers in the semiconductor, electronics and industrial markets. These materials were developed in the late 1960s, and then the company introduced a sealing product under the Kalrez brand in the early 1970s, Stone said. The product line mainly includes o-rings and door seals.
They originally entered the mechanical seal market but have since spread to many different markets, primarily electronics. According to Stone, Kalrez is sold as a sealed finished product. Kalrez joints have very high temperature resistance, around 327°C. They are also resistant to approximately 1800 different chemicals.
Stone says the company’s Kalrez product line includes more than 38,000 parts, most of which are custom-made for specific applications.
“Kalrez is so worn out that you absolutely need to make sure that the device doesn’t shut down due to an o-ring failure,” he said. “It helps increase the mean time to repair for some mechanical seal or semiconductor applications. It’s very heat resistant, it has very broad chemical resistance, and we’re customizing it as well. We’re adding a lot of different product lives.”
Overall, the division has a strong presence in the automotive industry, but not in the Kalrez line. Although Kalrez uses some transmission O-rings in some automotive applications, Stone said the main applications are mechanical seals in electronics and general industry.
“There are many different types of o-rings, but none of them has such temperature characteristics and such chemical resistance,” Stone said. “It’s very unique. Not many succeed.”
DuPont will use this opportunity to increase the efficiency of its production. Stone said the company will spend the next 18 to 24 months preparing the facility, which is currently underway, and moving into the new building.
“It’s a blank canvas,” Stone said. “We want to learn a lot about robotics, automation and machine learning.
“I look forward to working with external vendors to build a state-of-the-art facility. This is the first new manufacturing facility we have built for Kalrez in a long time, so we will be looking inside the industry and working with people to bring state-of-the-art capabilities. This is one one of the most exciting things about new investments.”
DuPont decided to stay in Delaware for a number of reasons, but primarily because, according to Stone, the company has built a strong infrastructure there in its four decades of presence. He noted the agency’s strong workforce, deep knowledge, experience, and strong partnerships with Delaware local governments.
“Staying there, rather than going through a major transition period of closing a factory and moving to another location, is important to maintain the continuity of our workforce and customer base,” said Stone.
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Post time: Aug-24-2023