Products Finishing

APR 2016

Products Finishing magazine is the No. 1 industrial finishing publication in the world. We keep our readers informed about the latest news and trends in plating, painting, powder coating, anodizing, electrocoating, parts cleaning, and pretreatment.

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Getting to a billion starts with a single step. For metal finisher and fastener sorter SWD Inc. in Addison, Illinois, that process began 36 years ago with three employees in a leased shop. Today, SWD is one of the top metal finishers in the fasteners industry, with more than 150 employees running three shifts per day in its 165,000-square-foot facility. SWD coated and/or sorted more than 10,000 different types of fasteners, stampings and springs last year, totaling over one billion pieces. It's the juggling of customer expectations and passing through truckloads of parts that earned SWD recognition in the finishing practices and performance category in this year's Products Finishing Top Shops Benchmarking Survey. "SWD is proud to be included in Products Finishing's Top Shops list," says Rick Delawder, company president. "Our team is dedicated to continuous improvement, assuring we adapt to ever changing customer expectations." The company specializes in black oxide, zinc (micro- and Finishing Practices/Performances macro-crystalline) phosphate, passivation of stainless steel, stripping and cleaning. SWD also provides dip spin organic coatings and finishing systems with licenses to apply Dörken, Magni and Yuken materials. Shortly after SWD was incorporated, they began sorting and packaging parts. With over 40 pieces of automated sorting machines using multiple vision cameras to ensure nearly defect-free parts, these capabilities are a piece of the value-added service to its customers. SWD's 24-hour operations and in-house fleet of tractor trailers, serving the Chicago, Rockford, Indianapolis and Milwaukee areas, have enabled the company to fine-tune its drop-ship capabilities, ensuring a high level of customer satis- faction and quick turn-around. SWD has ISO 9001:2008 and ISO 14001 quality and envi- ronmental management systems certification, and was the first metal finisher in the U.S. to achieve ISO 14001 certification. The on-site A2LA accredited lab facilities (ISO 17025) and precision operating standards ensure that parts meet strin- gent certification to automotive, commercial and industrial specifications. SWD has continued its involvement with a number of local and national organizations including the Chicago Midwest Chapter of the NASF, the Illinois Manufacturers' Association and the local community Chamber of Commerce and Industry. "By being involved with many trade and peer groups, we are networking and informed on various governmental and industry matters," Delawder says. "SWD has always looked for the latest innovations for our processing equipment and continues to work with manufacturers to use automated equip- ment achieving repeatable and reliable processing." SWD 630-543-3003 swdinc.com Matt, Rick and Tim Delawder own SWD Inc. in Addison, Illinois. on the relationship they have with their customers, including Daimler, Harley-Davidson, John Deere, Mercury Marine, Polaris and many more. The result of that "think differently" mentality was the development of the company's innovation team in 2013, a group of people from different skill sets—engineering, opera- tions and technology—who have the responsibility of identi- fying new technologies that would solve customer problems, as well as identifying new ways to serve Lincoln's customers. The team of about a dozen people are housed together in one building at the sprawling Lincoln Industries campus, giving them an opportunity to talk frequently and meet often to come up with solutions and possibly develop new products, which is what happened when the innovation team developed a high-temperature thermal insulation coating, which it calls ThermoLinc Genesis. Two years in the making, ThermoLinc Genesis is designed for vehicular exhaust systems where keeping heat or protecting nearby components from heat is important. Almost two years in the works by the innovation team, the coating uses a moisture-activated resin chemistry that forms into a glass matrix, which includes a large amount of insulating materials and other ingredients that help performance and result in a tough, durable, low thermal conductivity coating. While the innovation team is fairly new, the concept of coming up with newer and better coating applications is not, says Chad Nadgwick, a senior innovation engineer on the team. SWD Inc. Gives the Quality Touch to a Billion Parts a Year 22 APRIL 2016 — PFonline.com THE VOICE OF FINISHING 80 YEARS TOP SHOPS BENCHMARKING T O P S H O P S B E N C H M A R K I N G

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