Customers will at times ask why manufacturing facilities are shut down. Let’s face it: We live in an “I want the product, and I want it NOW world,” and no one wants to hear about a shutdown. But the main reason for a shutdown is ultimately for the benefit of the customer.

Think about your car—doing a quick walk-around your vehicle to inspect the tire pressure, lights, and wipers takes a quick minute and can be done prior to each time the vehicle is driven. However, changing the brakes on your car is preventative maintenance that takes additional time and requires the car to be taken out of service. These both help ensure you achieve the goal of getting where you want to go safely and without interruption.
The same applies to manufacturing. Maintenance, such as checking parts and fluids, etc., is completed on a routine and often daily basis. But large-scale improvements that require equipment to be taken out of service must be planned and are vital for any production facility. This process must be timed, monitored, and controlled to ensure the start-up is on time with minimal disruption to the ongoing supply of products.

When Did Shutdowns Originate?

In previous decades, shutdowns were scheduled to coincide with farming operations in the summer as well as the Christmas and New Year holidays falling at the end of the year. Fewer employees are involved with farming operations today, but the summertime shutdown is nevertheless an opportunity for hard-working parents to enjoy quality time with their families, taking much-deserved vacations conveniently coinciding while children are off from school. Winter or “holiday” shutdowns again provide an opportunity for families to enjoy hard-earned time with their families while reflecting on a successful year.

Nothing is more critical to an operation than its employees. The unmistakable message here is the McWane Ductile philosophy centers around the importance of family. Providing opportunities to enrich families while simultaneously scheduling major repairs to a facility is quite simply good business practice. Good business practice equals efficient operations, which in turn parlays into happy customers—happy customers with similar goals to get the job done and maintain a happy family life.

Maintenance = Sustainability

A manufacturer that does not improve and move forward is moving backward and simply will not endure over time. How often do you hear about a facility that has been in operation for over 100 years? This longevity is extremely rare in society today and quite an accomplishment. But facilities within the McWane family have done just that. One example is a building at a McWane Ductile location called the “hay house,” which includes a door in the ceiling where hay was dropped down to the horses. Facilities have evolved from horses to computers and automated equipment—all necessary to sustaining a quality operation. Planned shutdowns are critical to quality, too, providing the opportunity for the engineering team to complete major maintenance vital to the foundry equipment.

What Key Equipment Requires Maintenance?

The heart of ductile iron manufacturing at McWane begins with the cupola. A cupola is a cylindrical tube where scrap metal and additional materials are loaded from the top and melted as they drop to the bottom. Cupolas melt up to 80 tons of recycled scrap metal per hour with a continuous flow of iron through a hole roughly the size of a regulation softball near the bottom. Imagine over 1 million pounds of scrap recycled every day. It’s an amazing process, to say the least. 

The cupola is one of the best examples of why plants must eventually be shut down for repairs. Maintenance items such as refractory repairs are completed daily. Unfortunately, the shell of the cupola does not last forever and must eventually be replaced. It takes time to safely and efficiently complete the replacement process. Overnight or weekends are not enough time to complete the task. Access to this key equipment, along with other units, is usually restricted during routine operations. A planned maintenance shutdown is necessary.

An additional major player in the foundry operation is the annealing oven. Like the cupola, the annealing oven is vital to the casting process and allows the hot castings to cool slowly to remove internal stresses and add strength. At McWane Ductile, cast pipe is annealed to achieve the proper physical properties of 60-42-10 grade ductile iron. 

Meeting Demand With Upgrades and Improvements

Remember the hay house and horses? Installation of modern equipment is essential to an operation. McWane Ductile implements a Six Sigma approach to modernize facilities. Teams often include members ranging from the vice president to an iron pourer. Team members work in an atmosphere designed to relieve them of their daily duties and focus on the task at hand, evaluating where improvements are needed, how they will complete the job, and when the optimal time for completion will be.  

New pieces of equipment are installed to improve quality and productivity, keeping up with the demands of the marketplace. Zinc-metalizing process equipment is an excellent example of quality improvement. The demand for zinc-metalized pipe has increased in recent years.  When installed with V-BIO Enhanced Polyethylene Encasement, zinc-metalized pipe may extend the life expectancy of the ductile iron pipe, particularly in corrosive environments, enhancing the water system’s sustainability.

Safety and Environmental—From the Bottom Up

Commitment to safety and the environment is also important. Just like daily maintenance on a car, safety checks are completed daily. It is also vital to maintain and improve equipment and processes for safety and environmental reasons, as well as quality and production purposes. Planned plant shutdowns provide excellent opportunities to make significant improvements.  

As McWane founder J.R. McWane said, “The glory of business is not to make money out of it alone, but to make progress in it, to develop men and methods and products, to improve the state of the art.” All three McWane Ductile pipe facilities have achieved the VPP Star Worksite status through OSHA.

Why Do Shutdowns Matter to the End-Customer?

Shutdowns, whether full or partial, are critical to the success of any manufacturing facility. Sustainable business practices require a high level of commitment. One cannot simply look at the daily “I want it now” demands. Shutdowns are a necessary part of that commitment, with the ultimate goal of providing quality products safely and sufficiently today, tomorrow, and for decades. Valued customers inevitably use McWane Ductile’s products for sustainable water systems and share the same commitment to excellence when building “iron-strong” utilities for generations.  CS