Baltimore Fabrication opens York facility

After a year of demolition, construction and commissioning, Baltimore Fabrication’s new $6 million, 35,000-square-foot fabrication shop in York, PA is fully operational.

Compared to the company’s original one-acre Baltimore site, the York site is “a 10-acre blank slate” that can do more than accommodate more machinery: It can help the company improve capacity, capability and productivity, said Mark Rich, President.

In designing the new shop, Baltimore Fabrication, an affiliate of SteelFab Inc., was “able to collaborate with our affiliate companies and draw from experience across more than 18 production plants nationwide,” Rich said. “That allowed us to design a facility with true unidirectional flow, minimal material handling, and a layout built for productivity.”

The larger footprint is enabling the company to utilize more automated equipment.

“We’ve also created a safer working environment,” Rich said. “The way we move materials now — using overhead cranes and buggies — is much safer and more efficient for our team. A better floor layout reduces the number of steps required. Fewer steps mean fewer opportunities for errors, which improves quality control.”

The facility, he added, helps the company “reduce labor hours per unit, cut down on waste, lower overall costs and ultimately produce more through a more streamlined operation.”

Baltimore Fabrication, he said, is already planning to build a second facility on site in the future.