Sandvik opens new Productivity Center

On Oct. 16, Sandvik Coromant Co. celebrated the opening of a Productivity Center in its new U.S. headquarters in Fair Lawn, N.J. The company held a grand opening ceremony for the headquarters on July 1. The combined $26 million, 100,000-sq.-ft. facility includes office space, meeting facilities, the Productivity Center and an aerospace-focused Engineering Competence Center for customer training, engineering and process development.  

The new facility was constructed on the site of a closed Sandvik Coromant tool manufacturing facility adjacent to the old headquarters. After the new facility was completed, the old offices were torn down and the grounds landscaped. 

The new facility was built with energy-efficient materials and systems controls. More than 75 percent of all waste generated during construction was diverted from landfills and either reused, recycled or repurposed. 

Old furnishings and equipment were donated to various local organizations. Construction crews were able to preserve the "Sandvik Red Oak" tree, which has been on the site for many years. 

"Sandvik was one of the original businesses to invest in the Fair Lawn industrial park development back in 1955," said Karl Almquist, Sandvik Coromant's building project leader. 

At the Productivity Center grand opening, guests toured the two machining areas, which include CNC machine tools the company uses for research, training and customer projects. The onsite engineering staff provides CAM programming, part design and other services. The Aerospace Application Center provides machining capacity for sensitive customer projects and is certified under U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations.  

Klas Forsstrüm, global Sandvik Coromant president, and Eduardo Martin, market area Americas president, spoke about the value of collaboration with global suppliers and investing in recruitment and training.  

"Before coming to Fair Lawn, I had the chance to inaugurate another productivity center, at our global headquarters in Sandviken, Sweden," Forsström said.  "Our growing network of technical centers are not just showrooms. We have more than 250 machine tools and 400 individuals to provide customers with the engineering support they need to be more productive and more competitive." 

Martin noted productivity centers can be important tools to support collaborative recruitment efforts. "The good news is that there will be an increase in technical jobs of about 29 percent in the U.S. in the next few years, which means two million new jobs will be created. The challenge for us will be to find people with the right skills for those jobs. We need to collaborate with colleges, universities and other schools to make sure we have people who are well-prepared for technical jobs like the ones needed in manufacturing." 

Sean Holt, vice president of engineering and product management for Sandvik Coromant, discussed trends in manufacturing aerospace components. He noted the technical centers provide more than just cutting tool training services. "For projects such as aerospace parts, we provide programming support in many different CAM systems, as well as manufacturing support. For example, when developing a multitask machining project, we don't just provide a tool; we program the parts, provide the tooling and manufacture the component on one of our machines."

—Alan Rooks