Norco manufacturer completes global headquarters expansion

J.G. Petrucci Co. Inc. has completed a 70,000-square-foot expansion for Flexicon Corp. in Bethlehem Township.

A sign of exponential growth, one Northampton County manufacturer finished an expansion project that nearly doubles the size of its 91,000-square-foot global headquarters.

On Monday afternoon, J.G. Petrucci Co. Inc. of Bethlehem and Asbury, N.J., announced the completion of a 70,000-square-foot expansion for Flexicon Corp., Bethlehem Township, which marks its 40th anniversary this year.

The company produces flexible pneumatic and tubular conveyors and bulk bag discharge and filling frames and related bulk material handling equipment for the chemical, mineral, food, dairy, plastics and pharmaceutical industries.

The addition allows the steel forming, welding, grinding/polishing and blasting/painting departments to double in size and the electrical controls departments to increase four-fold.

“It has increased our capacity in both size and scope,” said Dan Capwell, spokesman for Flexicon. “The new building has a much higher ceiling clearance. We certainly have the room to build larger systems more efficiently. It also gives us more room for testing, and we are eyeing some new markets.”

In 2013, Flexicon had $23 million in revenue, according to Hoovers, a subscription database.

Flexicon has about 150 employees at its headquarters, Capwell said. The company is growing and will add employees, although he is not sure by how many.

He said the company is busy moving in and setting up the new departments and some of its new locations.

The assembly department, which will be relocated into the new space, will be eight times larger than before and provide up to 38 feet of overhead clearance to build larger systems and enhance factory acceptance testing.

The company will increase office space to 37,000 square feet. The first floor will be geared for an expanded electrical engineering department and meeting/training rooms – which can be combined with a new cafeteria using collapsible walls to seat 400.

Second-floor offices will house the executive management team, global management group, information technology department and project engineering division. The floor also will have six conference rooms.

J.G. Petrucci Co., a development and design/build organization, built the original site and also the expansion.

“It’s a great project; we love it when we do the initial building and the client comes back to us to do the expansion,” Martin Till, regional president of J.G. Petrucci, said this morning.

In addition to manufacturing equipment for the Americas, the Bethlehem site overseas Flexicon operations in the United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa, Chile and Singapore.

In 2001, the company bought the existing facility, which had acres of additional real estate available, leaving open the potential for expansion.

The purchase in 2001 also was an expansion, accommodating the company’s move from Phillipsburg, N.J., to Bethlehem.

Source: LVB.com