LOS ANGELES — Perryman Co. plans to double its capacity to produce aerospace titanium fastener stock and medical bar products.
The Houston, Pa.-based producer of titanium ingot, bar, coil, fine wire, net shapes and hot-rolled products said it will spend $40 million to boost capacity at its facilities in Houston and California, Pa. The expansion is expected to be complete in 2015 and could add up to 100 jobs. Perryman currently has 420 employees.
The company is "preparing for the future" when demand is expected to peak in 2016-18, president and chief executive officer Frank Perryman said in a statement.
The new program is aimed at giving Perryman Co. "additional footprint" across its finishing operations, after earlier major expansions that raised the company’s upstream profile, he later told AMM. Among the capabilities due to be expanded are heat-treatment, drawing, wire shaving and centerless grinding.
Perryman has been expanding since 2005, when it began what became a $110-million program lasting through 2008 to build its upstream capacity, adding melting and breakdown capabilities to support its original finishing operations.
The company is considered one of two major producers of titanium aerospace fastener stock, along with Carpenter Technology Corp. subsidiary Dynamet Inc., Washington, Pa. The expansion will also support Perryman’s medical business, which includes products for the orthopedics, trauma, spinal and dental markets.
The company noted that new twin-aisle aircraft such as Chicago-based Boeing Co.’s 787 Dreamliner and Toulouse, France-based Airbus SAS’ A350, whose use of composites is higher than earlier designed airliners, "consume a higher number of titanium fasteners." Aluminum, which historically has been the major raw material for aircraft fasteners on earlier commercial aircraft, isn’t considered compatible with composites in certain applications.
Industry sources also note that fastener requirements often ramp up later in the aerospace supply cycle and haven’t yet reached their peak. Plane builders’ fastener requirements are "getting back in sync with actual demand and production" of their aircraft, "so we need the increase in capacity to support these levels," Perryman said.
Perryman’s most recent major expansion came in 2012, when it acquired the Pittsburgh operations of Accellent Inc., a supplier of forgings to the medical industry, which became the Forge and Fabrication Group of Perryman (amm.com, May 7, 2012).