CRANBERRY TWP — Mine Safety Appliances is expanding its manufacturing footprint in Cranberry Woods.

Adding a 20,000-square-foot building to its 320-acre campus that contains its corporate headquarters, research and development laboratories and equipment manufacturing sites, MSA will use the one-story building to manufacture gas detection products.

The campus was most recently renovated in 2010, when the headquarters were added to the building.

Despite advances in technology that have made manufacturing more space-efficient, Nish Vartanian, MSA chairman, president and CEO, said the building has become cramped for its manufacturing processes with the addition of new products.

“What made most sense to us was to expand our capacity here, so we decided to add 20,000 square feet of manufacturing space here,” Vartanian said. “This is our first plant expansion when it comes to brick-and-mortar in Western Pennsylvania since we opened this facility back in 1985.”

MSA produces portable instrument and fixed gas and flame detection devices at its Cranberry plant. It employs about 1,250 people in the township, between its headquarters, R&D and manufacturing sectors.

While the company has a worldwide presence, with locations in California, Ireland and Germany, among others, Vartanian credited the Cranberry location with a large amount of its growth and business.

“By far and large, this is our center of excellence and where the vast majority of our production is,” he said.

The company posted $1.4 billion in revenue in 2019, according to shareholder documents. Although sales are currently slow, as many companies that buy products from MSA have been victims of the COVID-19-related shutdown orders, Vartanian said he expects sales to pick back up as the oil and gas industry gets back into the swing of things.

“While, today, demand for gas detection products has slowed down a bit because of the slowdown in the oil and gas industry, we certainly expect that demand to pick up as we come out of that COVID-19 situation here and into the future,” he said.

Township manager Jerry Andree said he is glad the company is expanding its footprint in the township and called MSA a “great supporter” of the township's growth, citing its vision of the Cranberry Woods business park and donation of land for the MSA Thruway.

“MSA's been a longtime great contributing member of the community, great people to work with, supportive and we're just very excited about them continuing to expand their presence here in Cranberry Township,” Andree said.