Die-Tech, a precision metals-stamping business, located in York Haven, knows how to signal its eagerness to participate in a new Pennsylvania Small Business Energy Efficiency Grant Program: It invited acting Environmental Protection Secretary John Hangar to announce the opening of the $3 million program at the 34-year-old, family-owned company’s 32,000-square-foot plant last week.
“We want to get in on the front end of this program,” P.K. Dennis, a company manager and member of the family, says. “We hope [to use the grant] to replace air-conditioning system on the roof of our plant and change out the lighting system inside.”
Working with Mantec, the DCED-supported Industrial Resource Center, Die-Tech learned about the program and analyzed the potential gain in efficiency. To qualify, projects must save at least 20 percent of annual energy costs (and at least $1,000 a year). The grants provide up to 25 percent to a maximum of $25,000 of project costs.
Die-Tech’s savings from the air-conditioning upgrade is about $20,000, according to Dennis. Costs and savings related to the plant lighting are still being analyzed for the grant application. Even though the program has a deadline of May 1, early applications may have a distinctive value in the first-come, first-served process that will provide support only until the $3-million fund–part of the state’s $650 million Alternative Energy Investment Fund–is exhausted.
Innovation is a key element of the company’s overall strategy, Dennis says.
Die-tech develops progressive dies, stamping molds used in the customized fabrication of electronic and other parts from thin ribbons of copper, bronze, stainless steel, and other metals. It fabricates the parts for military, aerospace, and automotive applications, and for such applications as filtration media. Although the industry average for creating a new progressive die is typically 12-to-14 weeks, Die-Tech has steadily reduced that important first step in fabrication to 4 weeks.
Source: Die-Tech, P.K. Dennis
Writer: Joseph Plummer
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