Alcoa Warrick Operations Wins Recognition from Customer

One of the world’s largest and leading manufacturers of lithographic plates for the offset printing industry has awarded Alcoa Warrick Operations with its 2010 Aluminum Supplier Quality Award.

Representatives from Fujifilm Manufacturing USA in Greenwood, S.C., recently presented the award to Alcoa’s employees during a visit to Warrick Operations, located near Newburgh, Ind.

While Fujifilm has other global suppliers, the company selected Alcoa for this annual award based on the superior quality, delivery performance, partnership and overall customer service that employees at Warrick Operations provided to Fujifilm’s Greenwood, S.C., facility in 2010. Fujifilm uses Alcoa’s aluminum to produce superior quality pre-sensitized printing plates.

David Hine, Senior Engineer at Fujifilm’s Greenwood facility, said the annual award is given after careful consideration of the performance of all of its suppliers.

“While the surface quality and performance results are critical, additional selection criteria include the quality of both technical and commercial service components,” Hine said. “In sum, it's the total quality of the aluminum coils and performance by Alcoa over the course of the entire year.”

Ed Hemmersbach, Location Manager for the Rigid Packaging Division at Warrick Operations, said the nearly 2,000 employees who work across Alcoa Warrick Operations are proud of the award.

“We work hard every day to consistently exceed the expectations of our customers. It’s what we do - safely producing world-class aluminum sheet to our customers with excellent quality and delivery lead-times.”

In a relatively short time frame, Alcoa Warrick Operations has demonstrated world-class success in producing lithographic-grade metal. The facility near Newburgh, Ind., one of Alcoa’s largest, began manufacturing coils of metal for the lithographic industry about five years ago, diversifying the plant’s products.

In August of 2007, Alcoa dedicated its Lithographic Cleaning Line at Warrick Operations. Prior to the line’s installation, Warrick Operations produced some lithographic metal, but the new line improved the plant’s capabilities. Since that investment, Alcoa Warrick Operations has become the only manufacturer in the United States of high-grade lithographic sheet. Alcoa also produces lithographic sheet at its plant in Bohai, China.

Already a leader in providing thin-gauge aluminum for the food and beverage industry, Warrick’s employees leveraged their technical expertise in producing lithographic sheet, which has exacting standards for flatness and surface quality. While other flat-rolled products have strong quality standards, litho’s requirements exceed those because of the metal’s end use.

“With our proven quality systems and world-class performance with light-gauge aluminum, litho has played to our strengths,” said Hemmersbach. “From edge to edge and end to end, we are committed to delivering high-quality metal to our customers.” (Business Wire)