RIA Undergoes Military-Style Makeover


Rock Island Arsenal has long prided itself on doing anything the military requests, but these days it’s more interested in doing everything the military requests better.


Shea Gibbs, Senior Editor


form performing economical tasks in pristine conditions. But the Rock Island Arsenal (RIA) Joint Manufacturing and Technology Center, Rock Island, Ill., isn’t necessarily a military installation. While the vertically-integrated manufacturer produces equipment for military applications and sits on a military base, the 1.5 million-sq.-ft. plant is run almost entirely by civilian employees. So when it began to fall into disrepair a few years ago, it took a strong military personality to come in and turn the place around. “Over the past few years, we have


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really reestablished the RIA brand,” said Colonel Craig Cotter, the facility’s current commander. “In this industry, an important value I’ve come to un- derstand is that there’s always room for improvement.” The employees of the arsenal refer


to the new big boss simply as “the Colonel,” and he is widely credited with instilling in the manufacturing facility a new sense of pride and purpose. “The Colonel is a very detail-oriented


person,” said Randl Besse of the ar- senal’s global business division. “He looked around and decided to figure out how to put the money in to make this place the national treasure that it is.” Cotter’s first order of business was to


make everyone clean up. To that end, the organization has invested in efforts to paint the building interior, both now and on a continuous basis. The arsenal also has assembled a lean manufactur- ing team to search the workflow for


MODERN CASTING / February 2010


e generally think of military installations as clean, orderly facilities. We envision tightly groomed officers in uni-


inefficiencies and create manufacturing cells, and it has undergone an external marketing offensive to match its internal changes. The facility is determined to win business based on its expertise, rather than being put to work by mili- tary agencies simply because it exists. “We have a long history of providing equipment, but we’re not necessarily known right now,” said Rhys Fullerlove, public affairs officer. RIA maintains a metalcasting facility


to help in its effort to become known, but like the rest of the manufacturing campus, with little to no investment in the facility until recently, it had struggled to keep pace with others in the industry.


Metalcasting’s Marching Orders One of the four main programs RIA


works on for the U.S. military is a mobile repair center. The arsenal produces 30- 40 of the units per month, depending on troop surge capacity. They make up about 20% of the facility’s business. Think of the units as being like your garage, only on wheels and “way bet- ter,” Besse said.


Rock Island Arsenal (RIA) Rock Island, Illinois


Metals Cast: On request.


Processes: Green sand, nobake, invest- ment, centrifugal.


Facility Size: Manufacturing—1.5 million sq. ft. Metalcasting—67,000 sq. ft.


Value Added: Assembly, painting, heat treating, patternmaking, plat- ing, machining, prototyping, nondestructive testing.


The repair centers contain a 5.5-ton


crane, cutting equipment, welding equipment and 600-700 hand tools. Running on a 35 kW generator, they are dropped into the field of battle and from there can be used to fix just about whatever the troops require. The RIA metalcasting facility works much the same way. “The RIA [metalcasting facility] is the


only [metalcaster] in the Department of the Army,” Cotter said. “It’s a gateway operation that gives us the opportu- nity to manufacture parts from casting through assembly with total control over the process, cost and delivery. We can deliver products from factory to foxhole in a short amount of time. It enables us to be versatile and more beneficial to the war fighter. We can produce very small parts for [military] systems to huge gears that help turn a swing span bridge.” The plant pours whatever metal its customers require—gray iron, ductile iron, compacted graphite iron, abrasion resistant iron, heat resistant iron, cor- rosion resistant iron, carbon steel, low alloy steel, heat resistant steel, corrosion


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