ATI displaying its mettle in a competitive industry
Twelve to 15 years ago, Scott Armstrong admitted, Allegheny Technologies Inc. had its mettle tested.
“We were close to being out of business,” he said. “We were not competitive, so we started to leverage some of the production we had. We did a great job increasing production and lowering costs.”
And of digging out. ATI, a specialty metals manufacturer, also has invested wisely in people and its operations over the past decade-plus, Armstrong said, and has upgraded its game significantly.
“We’re not competing against the steel company across the street,” he said, smiling, aware there is no rival steel firm across Green Street. “We’re competing internationally. About 80 percent of our competition is international.”
The manager of ATI plants in Canton Township, Monaca, Rochester and Zelienople was the featured speaker Friday at the monthly Washington County Chamber of Commerce breakfast briefing, conducted at the Doubletree by Hilton along Racetrack Road in North Strabane Township.
Armstrong, a former soccer star at Trinity High School and the University of Pittsburgh, affirmed that ATI is alive and kicking – along with manufacturing in general. His company, headquartered in Brackenridge in the Allegheny Valley, has 36 locations nationwide and 60 across the globe. It employs a total of 8,600 and recorded $3.5 billion in sales in 2017.
ATI serves primarily the aerospace and defense industries, he said, although oil and gas is a bona fide third customer category that continues to grow.
Armstrong oversees about 350 employees at those four Southwestern Pennsylvania plants, including an estimated 200 hourly workers at the Canton facility, where 60 others are considered management. He said ATI is devoted to its employees and their safety, and displayed a graph showing that between 2013 and 2017, the company had a very low lost-time rate.
The local plant was founded in 1901 as Jessop Steel, a name that changed after many years, but still endures among some residents. “That’s fine by me,” Armstrong said.
That facility is part of ATI’s flat rolled division, which employs a total of 1,900. Armstrong said the company invested $60 million into an annealing process at Canton in 2007, which provided a boost, and has spent more than $100 million there over the past decade or so.
Also known as Allegheny Ludlum Specialty Plate Mill, the rolling mill was roiling about three years ago. From August 2015 to March 2016, about 2,200 union employees at 12 locations in six states were locked out of their jobs after ATI announced it could not reach a contract agreement with the United Steelworkers. Then after the two sides reached an accord, the company laid off about 250 nonunion employees.
ATI has done well, but Armstrong said there are challenges ahead. He said, via Power Point, that “significant retirements” will occur over the next three to five years. “It’s hard to replace the experience,” he said. “We’re looking at trade schools. We know there’s a gap ahead and we’ll need people with skills.”
Manufacturing is on an upswing, though. Chamber president Jeff Kotula pointed out that 39 million people are employed by manufacturing firms in the United States, including 9,000 Washington County residents.
Armstrong said he is proud of where ATI stands. “We’re a global company.”