Newsletter - Winter 2004

President's Message | An Look Inside PPCP | Customer Profile - Gibson Stainless and Specialty, Inc. | PPCP United Way Campaign

A Message from Our President

As I sit at my keyboard to prepare this article for our last newsletter of 2004, I am vividly reminded of just how little control we sometimes have over what happens around us. At about 8:45 this morning a squirrel somehow found a way to short out two legs of our 14,000-volt primary electric source out at the pole in the parking lot. There were two immediate results. One was one very dead squirrel and the other was one very messed up manufacturing plant. Even as I sit here, several important pieces of equipment are still not in operation despite the fact that the Met-Ed technician gave us back our full power almost two hours ago.

Those of us who have worked in the foundry business for many years know well the impact of a lost leg in our electrical system and try to be prepared. We have a generator to keep the slurry tanks spinning and battery backup systems to keep critical electronic systems and a pump in the furnace area running. But, despite these plans, things get hectic when the outage happens and people
must respond quickly.

This situation with the squirrel is a little like what operating PPCP has been like through 2004. We made plans for how we would integrate the business of QIC with our normal business, but in the process some problems devel-oped that we just did not anticipate. The challenge problem that we have had to deal with over the past 12 months is an increase in business volume that we did not anticipate. We will be closing the year at PPCP with, by far, the highest sales in our history, and considerably more than the combined sales of PPCP and QIC would have yielded before the merger. Because we did not anticipate this level of business and had trouble ramping up our output, we have spent most of 2004 running late in injection and shipments. We have tried to explain to our customers that a “squirrel” that we had not anticipated got into our system, but they were not all completely understanding. They
just want their parts.

I am anticipating that by the time you read this article, our little incident with the squirrel on the last day of November will just be a memory and everything will be working fine again. We are getting closer to being on schedule and putting that problem behind us as well. Last August, we were running almost four weeks behind schedule in the wax room. As of this Monday, the shortage is down to about ten days and most of our work is leaving on time.

As this problem is slowly being put behind us, it is now imperative that we look hard at ways to increase our efficiencies and reduce our internal scrap in order to bring our bottom line back to a level we expect and have enjoyed in the past, along with the bonus that those good results produce.

Let me end this message by extending Vohnie’s and my warmest Christmas and New Year greetings to you and your family. We will be spending time with our family members and taking time to reflect on the real reason we are celebrating Christmas. Jesus came as a tiny baby in order to offer a plan of salvation to everyone who will accept Him. We hope that your holidays will be filled with special times as well.

Dick Miller

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"I am vividly reminded of just how little control we sometimes have over what happens around us."






"Last August, we were running almost four weeks behind schedule in the wax room. As of this Monday, the shortage is down to about ten days."

A Look Inside PPCP

The picture on the right shows molds that are being heated to 1800 degrees F. PPCP creates castings for our customers by creating a wax impression first, and then attaching to a sprue and creating a ceramic shell around the waxes. When fully dried, the wax is burned out of the shell leaving a hollow cavity to pour the desired metal into. Most of the alloys that PPCP pours are poured at 2950 to 3030 degrees F! The molds must be pre-heated to minimize metal-mold reac-tion and to assure that the metal will not freeze short in the mold. Generally speaking, heating the molds to 1800 degrees takes care of both potential issues. As you can see, 1800 degree ceramic shells glow red-hot!

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Customer Profile

Gibson Stainless and Specialty, Inc.

PPCP has been a supplier to Gibson Stainless and Specialty for many years. Many long-term employees have seen or met Joe Gibson over the years as he traveled to our plant for visits. Other employees who were recently hired may know very little about this customer.

Gibson Stainless & Specialty, Inc. was founded in 1995 to provide the electrical and mechanical industries with some of the "hard-to find" stainless steel items. Since that time Gibson Stainless has developed a number of unique products and is constantly working to expand their product line. The company's complete array of products is kept in stock, available for immediate shipment. Over 90% of Gibson Stainless orders are shipped complete within 24 hours.

That is where PPCP comes into play. We are responsible for keep-ing a steady supply of parts heading to Joe’s facility in the western half of the state! Gibson Stainless depends on PPCP to deliver on time, so that orders can ship as soon as they are placed.

It has been fun to grow along with Gibson Stainless over the
years. We value our relationship with them and look forward to growing that relationship in the years to come.

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"It has been fun to grow along with Gibson Stainless over the years."

PPCP United Way Campaign

The 2004 PPCP United Way campaign was once again an amazing success. The past year marks yet another year in which PPCP employees exceeded lofty goals for giving. We set the bar at $10,000 and were pleasantly surprised when the contributions topped $13,000 – a record for giving by PPCP employees. Six of our employees contributed over $500 and were added to the “Join the Leader” group for 2004. These six will be taken on a tour of the County United Way facilities and be treated to a dinner later in the year. We want to thank each of the employees who contributed to this worthy cause.

The Campaign kicked off with an employee meal prepared by the managers! Later, employees who gave were able to select from many great door prizes donated by some of our suppliers. PPCP would also like to thank all of the suppliers who were willing to donate prizes to help make this campaign a success! These suppliers are listed below!

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"We set the bar at $10,000 and were pleasantly surprised when the contributions topped $13,000."

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