“We’ve managed
pipe and fitting industry for more than 100 years. But now, as the company shifts its focus to produc- ing more commercial castings, the competition with foreign low cost producers has increased. “We’ve managed through quality and salesmanship to keep a lot of pipe here,” said Brad Muller, the company’s vice president of marketing. “In the last three or four years, we’ve focused on making commercial castings a strategic part of the business. Frankly, there is a lot of work coming back from China.” With a combination of century-
old know-how and modern innova- tion, Charlotte Pipe hopes to keep those jobs coming back. In late 2011, the company approved two improve- ments that will significantly help it compete in the commercial market— two new automatic vertical molding lines and an electromagnetic-coating
through quality and salesmanship to keep
a lot of pipe here.” —Brad Muller
system—and continue to serve the pipe and fittings market.
Life of Pipe Dowd calls cast iron Charlotte Pipe’s
“birth business.” Te company has been cranking out cast iron soil pipe and fittings for residential and commercial construction since 1901. Te industry has changed a lot since then. In the mid-1960s, plastic pipe came
on the scene, and now the vast major- ity of the “drain, waste and vent” pipe for residential applications has gone away from cast iron. (Plastic also can
be used in some commercial applica- tions, though in some cases building codes prohibit it.) Responding to the market shift,
Charlotte Pipe entered the plastic pipe business in 1967. It now has a plastic pipe and fitting production plant with manufacturing space that dwarfs the cast iron facility. “Iron is our core business,” Dowd
said. “In terms of revenues, it is smaller than plastics, but it is still one of the three legs of our company—plastic pipe, plastic fittings and cast iron.” Te overall market shift to plas-
tics left Charlotte Pipe with a large amount of unused iron casting capac- ity. So the company began selling commercial grade castings in the early 70s, most produced on the green sand lines run in the metalcasting facility’s fittings division, with a smaller number run on the centrifugal pipe side. Te shift turned out to be invaluable when lean times came along. According to Dowd, the pipe business is 100% tied to construction—when houses and commercial enterprises aren’t being built, there’s no need for new plumb- ing pipe—and when a recession hits, the company takes it on the chin. “We’ve always known this lesson,”
Muller said. “But we learned again painfully in the last few years that we have to have a more diversified line.” According to Dowd, the company
doesn’t have hope residential construc- tion is going to rebound anytime soon. While he anticipates commercial structures coming back more quickly, it will be several years before both return to pre-recession levels. And even that projection is subject to change. “Economists can change their mind
any time, and we just have to live with it,” Dowd said. “In the foundry, we realize that cast iron is trapped in its sector just like plastics, but we have invested heavily in our people and our gear, and we want to utilize that asset.”
Developing Technologies Charlotte Pipe is a metalcasting
Charlotte Pipe makes fittings on several auto- mated and manual lines on the green sand side of its casting facility.
December 2011 MODERN CASTING | 23
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60