WCR’s plates are used in manufacturing operations worldwide, and they are the only manufacturer in the country that produces gaskets and plates under a single roof.
“A heat exchanger is used in in all sorts of applications,” said CEO Kim Andreasen. “When you have pasteurized milk, when you drink a beer...it’s been through a heat exchanger. It’s used in HVAC, air conditioning...we are in pretty much all industries.”
WCR invested $15 million in its new 212,000-square-foot factory off of Bellbrook Avenue on the southwest side of Xenia. It had previously been a grocery store warehouse.
The move combines WCR’s original factory in Washington Courthouse and its distribution center in Fairborn under one roof, Andreas said. WCR moved to Xenia in part to be closer to a larger urban center, and a greater pool of workers.
The new facility has enabled WCR to produce these plates at four times the rate that they could at their Washington Courthouse location.
“So the ability to make these plates fast makes us a lot more competitive, and to be able to respond to our customer faster,” Andreasen said.
Heat exchangers make processes where any substance needs to be heated or cooled much more efficient. For example, in pasteurizing milk - a process in which milk is heated to kill bacteria - as the already pasteurized milk cools down, its heat passes through a WCR plate to milk that needs to be heated next.
“In a typical dairy pasteurization unit, there will be 2-300 plates. In a big HVAC unit that could be up to 7-800,“ Andreasen said.
Credit: Bryant Billing
Credit: Bryant Billing
The plates are made by first placing a sheet of steel into a robotic press that punches the steel into shape with 16,000 tons of force. The press itself, which weighs well over 1 million pounds, was shipped from Italy and then brought in parts from Covington, Kentucky on three 20-axle trucks, said Edward Aring, WCR’s Director of Sales and Marketing. It is the largest press of its type in North America, he said.
“When you ask what the future looks like, this is it,” he said. “This is the same type of press that billion-dollar companies are using.”
The rubber gaskets for those plates are also made in the factory, then glued to the steel plates and heat-cured. The glue is either industrial or food-grade depending on the necessary application. The plates are then stored for repair services, or packaged for shipping across the country.
Credit: Bryant Billing
Credit: Bryant Billing
WCR provides aftermarket plates for machines for 10 different competitors’ brands, Aring said, as well as repair service, employing about 10 technicians.
“They are the ones who go out and make sure that our clients are operating,” Andreasen said. “Our biggest task is to make sure that that our customers have no downtime...That’s where we need to have service techs that can kind of be the ambulance service in our industry.”
WCR company employs 185 people in Xenia. The expansion has enabled the company to create 50 new jobs, and Andreasen said the company’s targets are to grow by 10% annually in the coming year, offering its employees world-class benefits.
The company is planning its grand opening for late October.
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