Company recently invested half million dollars in new equipment
By Stefan Yablonski
Universal Metal Works has made a big investment in its future.
John Sharkey IV, president of Universal Metal Works, said the effort is to streamline the organization and make it more efficient.
“We are continually striving to grow by expanding our client base and growing into different sectors,” he said. “At one point, we were approximately 80% in the paper converting industry and we are now approximately 30% in that industry. The decrease is a result of expanding our customer base and evolving into different sectors.”
The metal fabrication facility located at 159 Hubbard St., Fulton, specializes in design and engineering, assembly, complete pre-assembly and more.
Among the services at Universal Metal Works are saw-cutting, water-jet cutting, laser cutting, welding and fabrication.
Its biggest investment in the past year has been in the forming department.
“We have invested over $500,000 in the department in the last year and have made a major investment in our machine shop over the last few years,” he said. “We have really been focused on streamlining our organization and making it more efficient. We moved a bunch of equipment around. We are set up a lot more efficiently now.”
During that process the company purchased some new machines as well — $500,000 for the investment on the forming area.
“We have two big lasers that were part of the reorganization,” he said. “They’re at the end of the facility to make it more streamlined.”
The lasers are Mazak 4.0kw machines and they both have the ability to cut one-inch mild steel and a half-inch stainless steel, he explained.
“The Cincinnati machine is part of our half million dollar investment in our forming area,” he said.
It is a 350-ton machine with precision tooling; it has a 16-foot bed with 14 foot between and is loaded up with seven-axis CNC controls, hydraulic clamping, auto crowning and sheet followers.
“This allows us to compete with high-volume precision forming,” he said.
Additionally in that area, the white “Pacific” brake has a 20-foot bed and is a 400-ton machine that is capable of bending three-eighths inch HR A36 Plate at 20 foot.
“The white Mazak Mill is part of our investment in the machining area. The machine is a MAZAK VTC 80030SRKY and has really allowed us to expand our machining department,” he added.
“We do any kind of fabricated parts. We do that for a lot of different customers, a lot of different municipalities,” he said.
“The scope of the projects we have done in the past vary from parts that are less than $1 to large capital projects that exceed a half a million dollars. We are an extremely flexible organization that is able to adapt to our customers’ needs.”
“It will be 14 years in September. Before that it was C and C Metal Fabrication. My father purchased it in 2010 and changed the name to Universal Metal Works,” he said. “We have around 30 employees; a couple part-time, too. That is where we have been for the past couple of years.
“The difference at Universal Metal Works is our employees. We strive to hire and retain employees that are both smart and talented. We look for employees that are able to problem solve, interpret prints and complete multiple steps of a project. Our employees are true craftsmen and are able to interpret prints, fabricate and weld.
“We are hoping this creates a lot of new opportunities for our company. We’d like to continue to improve, but we are running out of real estate,” he said.
