Hardide Coatings opens Virginia production facility

 

Martinsville, Virginia – Hardide Coatings Inc., the United Kingdom-based provider of surface coating technology, has opened its new Virginia production facility. In January 2015, the company commenced an investment of up to $7million in Martinsville to expand its production operations to North America. The new facility is expected to create up to 29 jobs over the next three years.

 

This expansion has been driven by increased demand from North American customers, with sales to the US and Canada more than doubling during 2015. The 26,000ft² facility in Martinsville-Henry County, will service existing and new customers for the company’s patented range of hard wearing tungsten carbide coatings in the oil and gas and flow control markets. In addition, the company also plans to expand in the aerospace and advanced engineering sectors and develop applications for its newly-patented coating for diamonds.

 

Philip Kirkham, CEO of Hardide plc said: “Having a local production facility in North America will support the increased demand from existing customers and significantly boost opportunities to expand provision of our coatings throughout the region. We have installed two large capacity chemical vapor deposition (CVD) coating reactors and work is already progressing well on some very exciting customer trials. I would like thank all in Martinsville-Henry County and Virginia Economic Development departments for their help and assistance, and in particular Gov. McAuliffe and Secretary Jones for their personal support in helping to get this project underway in Martinsville.”

 

The first two senior employees at the facility, Jamey Ewing, coatings supervisor and Barry Farmer, pre-treatment supervisor, spent 12 weeks during the summer in the U.K. at the company’s head office and main production site in Bicester, Oxfordshire, being trained on the Hardide coating production processes and techniques. They returned to Virginia in September 2015 to assist with the installation and commissioning of the process, production, and quality control equipment. 

 

“Production for North American customers, currently being carried out in the U.K., will be gradually transferred to Virginia on a case-by-case and phased basis, taking load and capacity of both sites into consideration,” continued Kirkham. “We have also invested in an ultra-fast broadband cable between the U.K. and U.S. sites enabling both facilities to operate on the same fast, secure network.”

 

The range of Hardide coatings are highly abrasion, erosion, corrosion and chemical resistant while also being tough, ductile and impact resistant. Applied by chemical vapor deposition (CVD), the process can not only coat external, but also internal surfaces and complex shapes.