The economic downturn gutted the Carlisle manufacturing
base. The former IAC plant closed in 2008. Tyco closed in 2009. Carlisle Tire
& Wheel closed in 2010.
That left Frog, Switch & Manufacturing Co., which
went through its own tough times. In July 2009, Frog, Switch was forced to
close its doors and lay off its 123 workers for lack of orders. A couple months
earlier, 48 employees had been laid off.
After being closed for a few weeks, the foundry at 600 E.
High St. recalled the 123 workers and restarted production with enough work to
run one shift for many months.
Today, Frog, Switch is running three shifts and employs
187 workers, 80 percent of whom belong to United Steel Workers Local 1688. A recent
nearly $2 million capital project added a new cooler and mixer, along with a
used finishing mill transported here from California.
The foundry touts itself as “a world leader in the
manufacture of manganese steel castings for the crushing and grinding
industry.” Every casting is painted with the “Made in the USA” logo before
going out the door.
“The advantage we're able to offer our customers is the
'Made in the USA' label, as well as the quality and the accelerated lead
times,” said Casimir Koshinski, executive vice president and chief operations
officer.
Beyond labels, Frog, Switch is solidly positioned in the
stable rock-excavation industry. It pours steel for the wear parts inside
rock-crushing mining equipment. Companies around the world are continuously
mining rock for copper, gold, iron ore and other minerals.
A privately held company, Frog, Switch had $40 million in
sales during the most recent year, Koshinski said.
Frog, Switch “remains as one of the few manufacturing
facilities we have that offer good jobs for a lot of skilled and dedicated
employees,” said Perry Heath, president of Carlisle Borough Council. “And they
have done so for many, many years through thick and thin.”
Mold inventory
Frog, Switch splits its business between providing the
wear parts as a subcontractor for the manufacturers of rock crushers and
replacing parts for machines in the field. The foundry keeps a building's worth
of patterns for old molds in case a call comes in for a specific wear part no
longer in production.
“We're constantly working with our customers to see what
crushers they have in service,” Koshinski said.
Iron ore is the jewel of the rock-crushing business. It
is the raw material used to make pig iron, which is one of the main raw
materials for steel. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, iron ore is mined
in 50 countries and 98 percent of it is used to make steel.
Infrastructure construction is a big barometer of the
need for iron ore and other rock-based minerals, Koshinski said. With the U.S.
requiring a significant investment to upgrade infrastructure — the American
Society of Civil Engineers notes the average age of the nation's 607,380
bridges is 42 years — Frog, Switch should have plenty of work for a long time.
Pouring steel has not changed much in decades. Metals are
cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring it in a mold, and
removing the mold material or casting after the metal has solidified as it
cools.
Frog, Switch works with several large molds — its biggest
part weighs 20 tons and measures 118 inches in diameter — so it requires many
specialty machines and powerful pulley systems to move parts around. An
electric arc furnace reaches temperatures of 2,700 degrees.
The foundry employs two molding processes: vacuum molding
and the sodium silicate, no-bake sand system. Both have been tweaked over the
years to be as environmentally responsible as possible, said Dan Gibbs,
environmental, health and safety director.
Koshinski said the local labor market is “good,” but
Frog, Switch feels the shortage in some skilled trades, such as welding. The
foundry will train willing workers but is also “working through some of the
other agencies and the high schools to develop some of these trades,” he added.
Environmentally
safe
In 2010, Frog, Switch capped a 4.5-acre landfill at the
rear of the 33-acre property. It is filled with sand and slag, a mineral
product separated from the steel during melting.
“We recovered what we could from it,” Gibbs said.
The foundry now trucks slag waste it can't reuse, about
800 tons annually, out of state for recycling. The vacuum and other methods
recover 90 to 95 percent of the sand used, Koshinski said. All scraps are saved
and reused to keep costs down.
Looking ahead, Frog, Switch is focused on expanding its
market base, Koshinski said. The industry is always looking for bigger rock
crushers, he added, and the percentage of metal in iron ore and other minerals
recovered from mines is declining. The wear parts the foundry makes last from a
couple of days to a couple of years crushing rock, Koshinski said.
It all adds up to
a bright future for Frog, Switch.
“Breaking rocks takes force, and it takes these large
shapes to do it,” Koshinski said.
About that name...
The foundry with the funny name has its own natural
conversation starter. But there are a couple unique things about the Frog,
Switch name:
1. The facility began production in 1881 known simply as
The Manufacturing Co. Eventually, the owners decided a better name was needed.
The “frog” in Frog, Switch stands for the special section of rail that allows a
train to cross over or to “switch” tracks.
2. Frog, Switch does not make “frogs” anymore and hasn’t
for more than 40 years. By the end of the 1960s, railroad parts were phased out
and the foundry began producing more profitable crushing and grinding wear
parts.
Source: Central
Penn Business Journal
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