GIW Industries, a leader in the design, manufacture, and application of heavy-duty, centrifugal slurry pumps, held a grand opening for its new foundry during early October in Grovetown, Georgia. The foundry is part of a large expansion that includes a new distribution center, additional heat treat and casting cleaning facilities, as well as CNC machines and an assembly center. This expansion is one of the largest in the company’s history and is the biggest project ever undertaken by GIW. This is all just one step in a path of continuous investment for the company. Phase one included the new foundry, which features 72-ft ceilings and is about the size of a football field. These new facilities will more than triple GIW’s current manufacturing capability.
Long term, this expansion will give GIW/KSB a significant advantage in the mining market. This investment will allow for better handling of the sizeable castings needed by GIW’s customers — some produced by GIW can weigh more than 40,000 lbs and are bigger than a cement truck. This expansion will allow GIW to keep up with current market demand and to be able to quickly adapt to support future growth.
GIW Industries was established as a small, family-owned foundry and machine shop in 1891 — known then as Georgia Iron Works. By 1914, the company was supplying slurry pumps to the Florida phosphate industry. Over the years, GIW became known for its severe abrasive handling pumps and began a century of facility expansion and technology growth. In 1996, GIW became a wholly owned subsidiary of KSB and in 2014 the GIW Minerals brand was established.
The newly expanded Grovetown foundry is now the No. 1 white-iron foundry in the world, boasting state-of-the-art equipment, highly efficient workflows, top safety features, and significantly greater capacity for both output and storage of very large slurry pump parts.
“There are places around the world that make a high-chrome iron, but not anything like our proprietary alloys. It’s these alloys that make GIW products unique and enable us to deliver incredibly long wear life for our products,” said Richard Sterzen, manager of industrial engineering.
Work on the new distribution center is currently under way and is slated to be completed in mid-2016. The building will initially be 59,000 sq-ft, but it was designed with options for increased capabilities to allow for future expansion.
