Building an ImPRESSive Tomorrow

A team of Alexandria Industries’ employees recently visited Presezzi Extrusion Group in Italy to see our new press.

Alexandria’s team members, starting with the fourth individual, left to right: Tom Welle PMP, strategic initiatives manager; Don Dickey, maintenance manager; Mitch Rasmusen, extrusion manager; Adam Cramlet, senior manufacturing engineer; Tom Schabel, CEO; Rydell Robinson, operations manager; and Jason Bachman, chief operating officer.

The Presezzi Extrusion Group and Alexandria Industries teams in front of our new press

This team and many others will be involved in and responsible for the set-up, management and operations of our new press.

The Presezzi crew building our press was eager to show it operating and heating billet. Naturally, our team was excited, and then in awe watching the press run. Similar to starting a new car, tractor, or anything with new, moving parts, the crew ran the press at a slower speed than normal to ensure everything works properly, and to break-in the press’s new mechanical components in a controlled environment.

Everything we wanted to accomplish on our trip went exactly as planned.

Presezzi will begin shipping the new press pieces in February 2020. It will take 63 cargo containers and two to three months to ship the equipment to Alexandria, Minn. For us, this can’t happen soon enough! We are more than ready to break-in our new press and start producing great products for our customers.

The ZPE magnetic billet heating system

The new automated log handling system