New manufacturer ALU-PRO USA comes to Clements Ferry Road
Clements Ferry Road business RAMAPO provides everything that goes into a window, except the glass.
“So, what we do is we import from China, we import from Italy, Germany, we import all of the product and we act more as a distributor to those in the glass insulating market in North America,” said Executive Vice President Lori Lyon.
According to officials at RAMAPO, a collaboration with longtime Italian partner Alu-Pro, who manufactures metal spacers for insulating glass, may pay off.
“We’re bringing the manufacturing to the U.S., so that’s hopefully going to start up within the next week or so,” Lyon stated in late May. “We really feel like this is going to be big in the U.S. because there really aren’t many manufacturers of this profile in the U.S.”
The company created from the collaboration is called ALU-PRO USA.
RAMAPO President Jason Douglas explained that Alu-Pro is a natural fit for the business venture.
“We began working with Alu-Pro, which is an Italian company around 2009, and really developed a good relationship, based on really similar corporate cultures, which was to make a high-quality project, be a resource for the customers using it, and stand behind it,” said Douglas.
Several Italian factory workers moved over with the machinery to construct the factory line, and others will move to the U.S. to operate the equipment.
The driving factor for the collaboration is the 2018 steel and aluminum tariff imposed by President Donald Trump on the European Union. This resulted in a 25 percent tax on steel and a 10 percent tax on aluminum.
“When the tariffs came around, we opened up discussions about whether it would make sense to manufacture it here, and it was also a matter of us having the largest market share of this product,” said Douglas.
On May 17, it was announced that a deal had been struck between the U.S., Mexico and Canada to lift the steel and aluminum tariffs. Further tariffs towards Mexico were threatened in response to illegal immigration, but it was announced on June 7 that tariffs towards the neighboring nation have been indefinitely suspended.
The decision to move the manufacturing to avoid the tariffs is a move that could positively impact the local area, according to Douglas.
“We’re going to bring high-paying manufacturing jobs to the area, we intend to grow that for our industry, which is essentially windows and glass,” he said. “Our company is well-known. It brings attention to the area. Honestly, every time we have someone visit from another country, they fall in love with Charleston, so it puts a bit of a spotlight on the area.”
RAMAPO was founded in 1982, moving to North Charleston 12 years ago. With the advent of ALU-PRO USA, the company moved to a Clements Ferry Road building to accommodate manufacturing equipment earlier this year. The machinery in the facility is ready to go and the team at ALU-PRO USA and RAMAPO is excited to kick things off.
“We really are planning for it to take off,” said Lyon. “We just started with our first [production] line, which [was] up and operational in the middle of June and then we have plans to add two additional lines.”