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Salford Opens Expanded Production Facility

June 14, 2012, Salford, ON – With a big pair of scissors and the words ‘I now declare this facility officially open’, Geof Gray, general manager of Salford Farm Machinery, launched a new era of farm equipment development and manufacturing at the company’s headquarters located just off Plank Line south of Salford, Ontario. Gray’s remarks were in reference to the recently completed 54,000 square foot expansion at its Ontario facility that increases the company’s total manufacturing footprint to more than 170,000 square feet.
 
The company broke ground on the project in July 2011 and construction was completed in early 2012. Since then, the developer and manufacturer of tillage and seeding equipment has been bringing the expanded facility on-line and it is now in full production.
 
“For some time we have been talking about the benefits of this new facility and now we are starting to realize them,” Gray said. Those benefits are many and include increased production capacity, improvements in the production process as well as enhanced product development and testing capabilities. There is also more loading and warehousing space in support of the company’s shipping and distribution services.
 
What wasn’t known to the assembled guests who came to mark the official opening is that the new facility was designed by some of the company’s own employees – engineers and production personnel – who combined forces to design a facility that meets the requirements of the company’s unique equipment and production process.
 
“Most companies outsource their design and development requirements,” says Brad Baker, Manufacturing Operations Manager, and one of the lead employees on the facility expansion project. “We’ve taken a different approach and leveraged our in-house expertise to custom-design a facility that is designed to meet our needs – and who better to know what those needs are than the people who work here designing and building the equipment?”
 
Baker notes that the expanded production facility has a number of unique features including a special mono-rail system for transporting heavy components through various stages of production and a specially designed, energy efficient, air circulation system, among others. The facility is also designed for quick changeovers, allowing the company to shift production from one product type to another with minimal to no downtime.
 
While it has only been operational for a short time, the new facility is already busy producing a range of Salford products including the company’s new 70 foot air drill. “We made this investment to support the needs of our farmer and dealer customers and as part of our ongoing commitment to be at the forefront of leading edge tillage and seedinq equipment development,” general manager Gray says. “With this newly expanded facility we have significantly increased our capabilities in both areas.”

June 20, 2012  By Salford Farm Machinery