Polymers made possible
CRANBERRY TWP — The hundreds of drivers who whiz westward on Freedom Road every day likely have no idea they are passing a top worldwide manufacturer.
Cannon USA is the global leader in the design and custom manufacturing of polyurethane processing equipment.
CEO Paolo Spinelli said thousands of items are made from varying concentrations of the versatile chemical polyurethane, from dashboards to vehicle seats to mattress foam to the insulation between the interior and exterior surfaces of major appliances.
Cannon USA, which is based in Spinelli's native Italy, builds the machines that hold the two main chemicals in polyurethane in twin tanks. Alone they are docile, but when combined by the Cannon machine, the polyurethane expands to fill a product's mold.
The office section of the large brown brick building on Freedom Road's north side houses the engineering department, where many machines are custom designed for the industry using them. Below that is the spacious work area where the machines are put together, an inventory area where $4 million in parts can be easily retrieved and sent to customers, and a research and development area, where prototype machines are tested.
The Cranberry facility, which opened in 1977, has a 30,400-square-foot workshop area and 12,900 square feet of office space. Cannon also has a facility in Zelienople with 44,500 square feet of workshop space and a 2,500-square-foot office area. About 90 employees work in the two facilities.
Spinelli said the Cranberry facility houses the engineering and assembly departments while welding and other basic functions are done at the Zelienople site.
The two facilities combined represent the largest polyurethane equipment supplier in North America and worldwide. The facilities boast the largest service staff in the industry and offer 24-hour, seven-day-a-week technical service to customers.
Spinelli said Cannon USA offers customers installation and start-up training by experienced and expert technicians as well as monthly training at the Cranberry facility or at the customer's site if necessary."Our technicians have to be able to understand all facets of every machine to service or train," Spinelli said.Spinelli said staying ahead of its few competitors is the formula Cannon USA employs to succeed now and in the future."Innovation and creativity, coupled with keeping up with technology, means quality," Spinelli said. "We ask the customer 'what do you need to produce?' then we come up with the best possible solution."He said hiring and retaining good and competent employees is another of Cannon's secrets of success. Spinelli said many of Cannon's employees have worked at the company for 15 to 20 years."Our employees stay because their work is interesting," Spinelli said. "They are always doing something different."In the large and tidy Cranberry workshop, machine prototypes wait for further assembly or shipping. Some are enormous and include assembly line apparatus and others are surprisingly small.Spinelli said while the machines are of different sizes and configuration, the basic concept of combining the two ingredients in polyurethane and dispensing them is relatively standard. He said the machines are mainly tailored to suit the customer's polyurethane-application needs.Spinelli said Cannon does 80 percent of the refrigerator production in the U.S. He said polyurethane insulation in refrigerators made possible by Cannon's creations has largely replaced environmentally detrimental gases such as freon, which recently earned the company a prestigious Canadian environmental award.Spinelli said one little-known fact about refrigeration is that only American units are made of metal for the sole purpose of using magnets on their surface. Refrigerators in all other parts of the world are made of a special plastic.
