Kloeckner Metals Corporation, a metal distribution company, hosted a grand opening event on Wednesday, May 3 to celebrate the move of its flat-rolled division to a new 106,000-square-foot facility located at 25056 S. Will Center Road in University Park, IL. Activities during the event included tours of the new facility and its capabilities, food and prize giveaways.
After spending nearly 20 years operating out of a 100-year-old building in Chicago’s south side, this expansion will allow Kloeckner to bring more value-added services and expanded processing capabilities. New machinery includes a 72-inch slitter and a cut-to-length line with multiple cassettes to enable more efficient processing of heavy and light gauge materials. Kloeckner also rebuilt and remanufactured much of the existing equipment. The latest in precision controls and software have been added to ensure close tolerance, cut-to-length and slitting work. Increased crane capacity and a larger variety of metal products round out the new services.
“We are very excited by the opportunity that this significant investment in our new University Park, IL location provides,” says Russ Delaney, Kloeckner Flat Rolled Group President. “We are now positioned to serve the largest metals market in North America with highly-customized supply chain solutions for Kloeckner value-added products that include carbon steel, stainless steel, and aluminum. We implemented a major digitalization of our supply chain strategy through the use of state-of-the-art equipment, processing capabilities, extensive technical support resources, and the broadest and deepest product range available.”
Tony Munno, Flat Rolled Group General Manager, further explains, “This move is the first phase in a planned strategy to differentiate ourselves from our competition, take advantage of a strong steel, aluminum and stainless steel market, and bring more value-added services to our existing and potential customers.”
The new plant’s location provides ingress/egress convenience sitting along a railroad siding so material can be received directly from rail cars. Kloeckner has recently focused on implementing significant “digitalization” of their supply chain strategy to provide service to industrial consumers, similar to the manner in which Amazon and eBay service consumers.
​​The leadership team at Kloeckner is optimistic about doubling the size of this new facility within the next few years. According to Munno, the company hopes to double their revenue in the next five years. “This move is the first phase in a planned strategy to differentiate ourselves from the competition,” he says.
