As featured on Mon, May 21, 2007 in the Daily Local News for Chester County, PA Employers scramble to find qualified labor By Brian McCullough
Daily Local News To see the special Edlon company profile video Click Here EDLON: A specialized jack of all tradesAVONDALE PA -- Edlon Inc. employees have a saying, one that gives them comfort even during down business cycles.
"Rust never sleeps." That basic metallurgical fact of life has helped keep the company founded by former DuPont executives in business for more than 40 years, most of it at its current location in the borough. But company officials credit the company‘s flexibility, adaptability and old-fashioned ingenuity with its ability to stay viable in an industry that faces strong competition from foreign operations. ”In the last five years, we‘ve lost one-third of our competition,“ said Steven E. Rau, Edlon‘s technical director. ”They only served one industry and did one technology. We‘re diversified.“ Founded in 1964 and operating at its Avondale location since 1967, Edlon now is a division of Robbins & Myers of Dayton, Ohio, which purchased the company in 1994. Edlon produces a line of advanced fluoropolymer-based products that deliver corrosion resistance, high purity, high-temperature capabilities and non-stick properties. (DuPont‘s Teflon is the brand name of the best-known fluoropolymer to the average consumer). The company‘s major customers are in the pulp and paper, chemical and pharmaceuticals and semi-conductor industries. Edlon also has a small but growing presence in the biopharmaceutical and defense industries, said Jeff Pilgrim, operations manager. Revenues at the Avondale operation, where 55 people work, are $12 million to $13 million annually. In the area of corrosion protection, Edlon produces fluoropolymer-bonded liners, coatings and thick, loose liners for processing, transporting and storing chemicals. In its high purity operation, it makes fluid management equipment for processing, transporting and storing ultra-pure chemicals. The clean tanks are used particulary in the making of silicon wafers used in most modern electronics. It also makes a line of Teflon roll release products that save time and money in paper production by eliminating roll picking, sticky build-up, corrosion and frequent production stoppages for cleaning and maintenance. Those rolls are used to make paper products such as sugar packets found at restaurants, Post-It Notes and for packaging McDonald‘s McMuffins, among others. But its main advantage within the industry may be its ability to provide unique products. Edlon officials said they‘ve survived not because they are the cheapest, but because they can provide solutions for their customers that others can‘t. ”Design is two-thirds of what we do,“ said Bernard W. Jenson, product manager for Edlon‘s specialty products operation. ”It starts with a drawing and we supply everything.“ ”Only one or two companies in the world can do that,“ Jenson said of the seaming technology. Among Edlon‘s biggest customers are Kimberly Clark, which uses the non-stick roll covers to make diapers, DuPont, Dow Chemical Co., Honeywell and semiconductor fabricators. Flexibility is a must for those working at Edlon. The company recently completed a 15,000-pound mold for DuPont. To get it in and out of its Pomeroy Avenue shop, workers had to cut a whole in the roof. ”We see ourselves as a solutions provider,“ Rau said. ”What we‘re good at is developing things that haven‘t been done yet. There‘s a lot of different technologies we‘ve developed. But we‘re expensive. There‘s a lot of engineering that goes into it. We maintain a core of knowledgeable people that can ride the ups and downs (of the business cycles). We‘ve been able to do that.“ One of the major industries Edlon supplies, semiconductors, hit a major downturn in the early 2000s when the telecom bubble burst, Pilgrim said. That, along with a general business slowdown following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, led to the demise of many of Edlon‘s competitors. ”They didn‘t weather the storm or some are substantially weakened and we‘re picking them off left and right,“ Pilgrim said. ”For us, when one (business segment) is down, the other can be up and we‘re fine. The business climate now is ”moderately strong“ and the telecom market is back to where it was before the bubble burst in 2002, Pilgrim said. Edlon also benefits by having a parent company, Pilgrim said. Last year, Robbins and Myers had sales of $625 million. ”We‘ve got the backing of a much bigger financial body,“ he noted. ”Investments can still be made and we share a lot of the costs of central support, the administrative functions.“ The company over the years has talked about the possibility of moving to a building with more space and higher head room. For now, though, Edlon has no plans to move. ”We‘re trying not to grow too fast,“ he said. ”As we continue to knock off the competitors, we‘ll keep considering our options.“ Pilgrim does not expect large spikes in growth but said the company is keeping an eye out for opportunities.
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