Turn on the faucet, and the job of the copper plumbing tube is simply to move water from one point to another. Turn up the air conditioning, and the copper tubing within must allow for uniform heat transfer, requiring a precision product.
Cambridge-Lee Industries in Reading, already one of the world's largest distributors of copper tubing, is building a new plant to manufacture such high-tech, thin-wall copper tubing for air conditioning. The new product, says Cambridge-Lee CEO Ed Kerins, carries much more stringent specifications than standard copper plumbing tubes in order to achieve the absolutely consistent wall thickness necessary for optimal heat transfer. Cambridge-Lee will be the first Pennsylvania maker of the thin-wall tubing.
The new product means a significant hiring boost. Cambridge-Lee expects to hire as many as 250 new workers – production, engineer, quality control and cost accounting personnel – by the time the plant is running at full capacity in 2015.
Cambridge-Lee was established in 1963 in Boston and came to Pennsylvania in 1996 with its purchase of Reading Tube. In 1993, Industrias Unidas S.A. de C.V. (IUSA), one of Mexico's largest conglomerates, acquired the company. Today, Cambridge-Lee has its company headquarters and manufacturing facilities in Reading and employs about 300.
The new, $60 million, 195,000-square-foot plant, says Kerins, is scheduled for completion in the third quarter of next year.
Source: Ed Kerins, Cambridge-Lee Industries
Writer: Elise Vider