Hardide Coatings has announced the opening of its new Virginia production facility. In January 2015 the company commenced an investment of up to $7million in Martinsville to expand its production operations to North America. The new facility is expected to create up to 29 jobs over the next three years.
This expansion has been driven by increased demand from North American customers, with sales to the US and Canada more than doubling during 2015. The 26,000 square foot facility in Martinsville-Henry County, will service existing and new customers for the company's patented range of hard wearing tungsten carbide coatings in the oil and gas and flow control markets.
In addition, the company also plans to expand in the aerospace and advanced engineering sectors and develop applications for its newly-patented coating for diamonds. The first two senior employees at the facility, Jamey Ewing, coatings supervisor and Barry Farmer, pre-treatment supervisor, spent 12 weeks during the summer in the UK at the company's head office and main production site in Bicester, Oxfordshire, being trained on the Hardide coating production processes and techniques. They returned to Virginia in September 2015 to assist with the installation and commissioning of the process, production and quality control equipment.
