Triumph Over Fire and Ice
How one manufacturer worked through catastrophe after the 2014 Buffalo Blizzard and an earlier fire By ANNIK BABINSKI Reprinted with permission: The AWS Welding Journal On the afternoon of Tuesday, November 18, 2014, the residents of Buffalo, N.Y., watched as a mountain of snow moved across Lake Erie and into their city. The Buffalo Blizzard, a lake-effect storm, would drop 71⁄2 ft of wet snow on the city and its surrounding areas in 9 hours. The sun came out on November 19, but snow began again on the 20th, before it stopped for good. According to Business Insider, the storm broke the city’s December 1955 record of 33.9 in. of snowfall in a single day, and almost doubled it, reporting 65 in. in 24 hours (Ref. 1). More than 100 cars and trucks caught by the storm stayed buried on the New York State Thruway until authorities could dig them out after the storm (Ref. 2). Despite the incredible depth of the snow, the storm had a tight area of impact. If you travelled 30 miles south of Angola, N.Y., that same week, there was green grass on the lawns. The buildup of snow on rooftops posed a structural threat to people’s homes even after the snowstorm itself had moved on. According to WeatherBell meteorologist Ryan Maue’s estimate, the average Buffalo driveway had 25 tons of snow weighing it down after the storm (Ref. 2). A paved driveway may be able to withstand that pressure, but many metal roofs could not. Thirty major and 90 minor roof collapses were reported as a result of the storm (Ref. 1), including the Flexovit USA facility just south of Buffalo in Angola, N.Y. Flexovit, an abrasives manufacturer, opened its first wheel manufacturing facility in the summer of 1977. In 1995, it became the first North American abrasive wheel manufacturer to receive an ISO 9002 Certification, and it has since achieved ISO 9001:2000 Certification. The company has four warehouse locations: Rancho Cordova, Calif., Brampton, Ontario, Canada, Monterrey, Mexico, and its corporate headquarters in Angola. A Surprise Storm As Pierre Hawkins, director of sales and marketing for Flexovit, explained, weather systems move up and down the Lake Erie coast, so even if a weather system passes through, it may return a few hours later. When the snow began to fall on November 18, the company had not shut down in 25 years. They didn’t know then how serious the storm would be, and it took some time to decide to close the plant early. It could have been just as dangerous to be out on the road as it was to stay and wait out the storm, and numerous workers ended up spending the night at the factory until the snow died down Wednesday morning. The plant remained closed on Wednesday, and the snow picked up again that evening. Flexovit had not yet had a chance to shovel the roof. Early Thursday morning, Robert Riehle, director of manufacturing and human resources, attempted to reach the facility to check on the building. On either side of Eden-Evans Center Road where the facility sits are the 20 and 5 highways. These highways were a priority for plows, and as a result, drifts of 12 to 14 ft had built up at both ends of the street, making it impossible to traverse. Riehle had to head home. At 4 a.m., the company’s burglar alarms were set off. Before the police could reach the building, photos of its collapse reached Flexovit employees on social media. Environmental conservation officers on snowmobiles were the first officials to reach the building, and when Riehle finally saw it, he said, “It looked like the steel beams had been twisted. It’s hard to imagine beams ripped like a piece of paper.” Post-Snowstorm Damages Later, reviewing security footage of the employee services building, Hawkins said you could see the camera, which was positioned on the ceiling, slowly pan upward as the ceiling behind it caved in. And then the video went black. An air-conditioning unit directly above that camera is thought to have built up snow drifts in addition to the 7 ft that had fallen. The company suspects this caused the roof cave in. Thankfully, the building was empty of people when it collapsed. Not only was the entire structure mangled, the machines inside were broken or required electrical repair because of flood damage after the storm. The building sprinkler system was fed by an 8-in. water main, which ran for three days after the collapse because no one could disengage it. This resulted in widespread flooding damage, which rotted the bottom 4 ft of drywall on the first floor and short circuited many of the machines. All in all, that first morning Riehle reached the building by snowmobile, he was looking at $30 million in damages. Tough Choices Staring down at $30 million of damages is daunting, but Thomas Calabrese, president and CEO of the company, said it didn’t take long to decide they would rebuild. Flexovit is one the largest employers in the area, and provides a hefty tax base to fund community schools and services. The company owner, Jay Iliohan, is also highly committed to continuing to support western New York manufacturing. According to Riehle, it costs 29% more to manufacture goods in America than to export the work, and manufacturing in New York costs 17% more than the average state. The company’s answer to the higher cost is using highly automated and efficient production. Luckily, the company has no debt, its ownership is 100%, and it has substantial cash, which helped it weather the rebuild. Once it decided to go forward, the company had to clear snow off the buildings that were still standing, focus on restoring power, water, and communication lines to the facility, and move the functioning machines into the office space. What was a 62,000-sq-ft manufacturing and storage facility was compressed into a 25,000-sq-ft office space. Many of the company’s more than 100 workers were laid off until the company could regain full manufacturing capability. A month after the storm, in December 2014, the company had reopened and resumed manufacturing in undamaged sections of the property. Sales and distribution were also maintained throughout the early months of rebuilding. Adaptation Given its new tight quarters, Flexovit adapted its production line. A large room that once housed cubicles was converted into storage space and a maintenance shop. The human resources office had its wall torn down and was converted into the palette structure stretch wrapper area. Offices moved upstairs and the previously automated stage batching plan was recreated in miniature and manual. Abrasive manufacturing requires climate-controlled areas for different processes in the manufacturing chain, and the new production areas were set off from one another with large plastic sheets to keep cool and hot rooms at their target temperatures. The company also made space by placing extra machines in storage. Even working with a much smaller, more manual setup, the company was able to produce 85% of its product line in a year, and in September 2016, two years after the storm, it will reach 100%. No Stranger to Rebuild Although the roof collapse was devastating, Flexovit is well versed in picking itself up and continuing to work despite a compromised facility. In 1995, the same year the company earned its first ISO Certification, its factory caught fire and the manufacturing complex was almost completely destroyed. The company formed a rebuilding team and shipped its first product within eight weeks of the fire. Three years later, the new plant was fully completed. The company’s first rebuild resulted in a facility double its original size, with an automated bonded abrasive mixing system, upgraded fiberglass coating and cutting lines, and more redesign upgrades. With this rebuild, the company will be able to design for efficiency even more than before. For example, they can place raw product storage right beside its production line, to cut down on transport time. The size of the facility will remain the same. Grand Opening Calabrese attributes the company’s ability to bounce back from both the initial fire and this roof collapse to its ISO system. Although the company lost all of its files in the 1995 fire, the ISO system, which it had been certified in for only months before, provided it with a guideline to rebuild. This time, the company continued to perform research and development throughout the storm rebuild, and it plans to unveil eight to nine new products in the next year. It is on target to host a grand opening of its new facility this month. The company credits it customers, suppliers, and even its competitors with helping them through this crisis. “We are here,” said Riehle, “I hesitate to say we are back, because we didn’t go anywhere. It was a temporary pause.” References- Bertrand, Natasha, and Storm, Christian. 2014. 13 staggering photos of Buffalo’s historic snowstorm. Business Insider Online. businessinsider.com/buffalo-blizzard-2014-2014-11?op=1. November 21.
- Rice, Doyle. 2014. Epic snowstorm on track to set a record in Buffalo. USA Today Online. usatoday.com/story/weather/2014/11/19/wednesday-weather/19261905/. November 20.
