Equipment maker expands operations
Industrial process equipment manufacturer acquires building in Honey Brook
R-V Industries Inc. recently purchased a 44,000-square-foot building that company officials say will allow the Honey Brook, Chester County, company to expand.
The new facility, which includes both office and industrial manufacturing space, is located on 13 acres of land along Poplar Road a short distance from R-V’s headquarters at 584 Poplar Road.
“This purchase helps facilitate our growth plans and optimize efficiencies by consolidating locations,” R-V president and CEO Kirk A. Putt said in a release. “We are committed to U.S. based manufacturing and believe the local southeastern Pennsylvania community offers a unique work ethic and high level of integrity, both core values of our company.”
The building was previously home to Hartman Plastics Inc. It will undergo renovations, which are projected to be finished by mid-2020, said R-V’s marketing manager Robert Hamm.
“We’re looking forward to having space there for assembly, maybe to showcase products, maybe to do some customer training, we’re going to have office space there as well as additional warehouse space,” he said. “We’re going to re-do the inside, re-do the office space, redo some of the assembly areas that we’re going to put in.”
Founded in 1974, R-V Industries is an industrial process equipment manufacturer that specializes in producing jacketed vessels, pressure vessels and other equipment for a variety of industries.
In addition to its headquarters, R-V has additional manufacturing facilities in Honey Brook, Morgantown and Exton, for a total of 160,000 square feet of manufacturing and assembly space.
These facilities offer turnkey design, fabrication, machining, finishing, assembly and testing capabilities allowing R-V to serve clients ranging from local product manufacturers to Fortune 500 companies.
Hamm said there is a lot of growth in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and food and beverage sectors, and that growth is what led to the purchase of the new building.
“Anything that requires clean environments to assemble products, we’re seeing growth in that area, so we’re moving toward expanding that way,” he said.
R-V has about 270 employees. It is currently hiring, and Hamm anticipates that the new space will allow R-V to hire even more employees.
“We’re in the process of hiring more workers now, so we’re continuing to grow, so we do see that as an opportunity for growth and more employees,” he said. “We’re continuing to grow the workforce. We have a lot of fabrication, a lot of welding, machinists: a lot of the jobs that many manufacturers are looking for right now. We’re still in search of those.”