Alupress celebrates expansion at Laurens plant
September 19, 2014
Our Business Recruitment Officer, Jacob Hickman, joined in the expansion celebration today at the Alupress facility in the Hunter Industrial Park. Read more about the celebration below:
Alupress celebrates expansion at Laurens Plant | Clinton Chronicle
Laurens Mayor Sharon Brownlee cuts the ribbon Friday for an expansion of the Alupress facility in Hunter Industrial Park. The company’s expansion added a Casting Facility to turn aluminum into custom-made part for the firm’s clients, including ZF Transmissions Gray Court.
Laurens County officials, SC Chamber of Commerce, Piedmont Tech and readySc and apprenticeship officials attended the morning celebration, tours of the Casting Facility and Alupress plant, and lunch at the Hunter Industrial site.
“For me the most valuable asset of our Laurens facility is our employees,” Alupress Board Member Harald Oberrauch said, “with their motivation and dedication to learn new technologies and processes to allow them to become meaningful members of our family company. I am really proud of all of you and what we have collectively accomplished so far.”
Alupress has made the decision to invest $20 million over the next 5 years at the Laurens plant to more than triple the manufacturing output of the foundry and machining operations. “With the commencement of our aluminum foundry here, our goal is to be the best aluminum foundry and machine-aluminum parts supplier to the American auto market,” Oberrauch said.
Today, Alupress has more than 800 employees in 3 different countries. Alupress bought Korber, the machining company that was originally on the Hunter Industrial site. “I was sitting in our little office right over there with our U.S. President Martin Niggemeier; I asked him one thing: Is it possible to really build an aluminum foundry in Laurens? He said, ‘Sure, why not?’ And here we are today, 4 years later celebrating Martin’s confidence in this community and our collective expertise,” Oberrauch said.
He presented Tony Allen, representing the State of South Carolina and the SC Chamber of Commerce, a statue of Saint Barbara, patron saint of miners, foundry workers and military engineers, hand-carved in the Tyrolean Mountains in a town close to Alupress’ headquarters and mounted on a piece of Alupress aluminum.
“We have tasked her with overlooking the good fortunes of our new Laurens facility,” Obberauch said.
The Alupress foundry is constructed to accommodate 6 casting machines (each has a clamping force of 900 tons). The Laurens facility will accommodate one additional extension of at least 20,000 sq ft and that would allow the company to add 8 casting machines, for a total of 14 on-site.
The casting production started as planned in June, 2014, producing castings for its customer, ZF.