DA Glass makes plans for factory in the Keweenaw

DA Glass America's plans to open a $10.5 million, 50,000-square-foot glass production and distribution facility at an old manufacturing plant in the heart of the Copper Country have been public for about a year now, but unanticipated delays have pushed back the plant's opening several times.

Jeff Ratcliffe, the Keweenaw Economic Development Alliance's new director, says the holdup is mostly due to shipping issues and shouldn't jeopardize the project itself.

"They're waiting for machinery and equipment to arrive from the other side of the Atlantic," he says.

According to publicly available shipping records, DA Glass America imports equipment from DA Glass, its Poland-based partner firm, through the Port of New York/New Jersey.

Steve Williams, DA Glass America's president, now aims to get the place up and running by this spring. He plans to get one line running almost immediately, with a staff of about 30 technicians, production laborers and warehouse/office employees working in three shifts. Shortly thereafter, the company will begin setting up a second line, also with three shifts. Once the two lines are in full swing, the facility will have 102 employees--a key benchmark for the project's $2 million MEDC loan--in various supervisory, production, logistical, and office functions.

Williams expects the factory's first-year output to reach 1.5 million square meters of high-tech glass. With both lines operating around the clock, annual output could hit 2 million square meters. No additional loan funds ride on DA Glass America's ability to reach these goals, but the company's pride and profitability sure do.

"If lines one and two can reach these capacity goals within the year," says Williams, "the startup [phase] will be considered very successful."

Early on, DA will focus on producing highly specialized glass for horticultural and solar-power applications--segments that its Polish counterpart already courts heavily. Although the decision to locate in Calumet was based on "extensive research," says Williams, many of DA's existing clients--especially solar operators--aren't local.

That could change.

"Over the next five years, we have budgeted for the addition of at least two new lines to accommodate new products," says Williams, "including lighting applications and laser lenses."

Williams credits DA Glass Poland's top-notch R&D department for developing several highly efficient technologies, including lighting systems that have roughly doubled the energy savings of conventional assemblies in rigorous European market tests.

"I expect these systems to be a very good profit center for the plant as we move forward," he says.

Initial client presentations, he adds, have attracted substantial interest from prospects across the U.S., including the Upper Midwest, as well as from Canada and Mexico. According to previous reports, the entire facility could support 200 jobs or more once these additional lines are fully functional.

While the actual production process relies heavily on robots, that's not necessarily a bad thing, since the human workers DA needs will perform complex tasks for decent compensation.

In a world where new technologies and ideas often flow from the U.S. and other developed countries to manufacturing centers in lower-cost places like China and Mexico, the idea of an American plant producing glass developed in Poland may seem odd.

The arrangement can be partially explained by the fact that DA Glass America isn't really a subsidiary of DA Glass Poland. It's actually an offshoot of Iowa Illinois Warehouse Services, an Elgin, Illinois-based firm (also run by Williams) that designs, builds and sells storage equipment, including steel racks, for warehouses across North America.

After connecting with DA Glass Poland as a marketing agent in the early 2010s, IIWS purchased an interest in the Polish firm and agreed to open a joint glass manufacturing facility on U.S. soil. In addition to opening up new markets for the transatlantic partnership, the venture aimed to harness increased demand for "made in America" products.

Williams' dual executive role notwithstanding, IIWS and DA Glass America operate semi-autonomously--at least for the moment. Depending on how the Calumet operation fares, though, Williams won't rule out the possibility of moving the combined company's corporate headquarters to the Keweenaw, or at least creating a combined accounting department to be based there.

For the Copper Country, that would certainly be cause for celebration.

Brian Martucci writes about business, finance, food, drink and anything else that catches his fancy. When he's not working out of his office on Marquette's East Side, you can find him stretching his legs on the trails or sampling local flavors at Blackrocks and the Ore Dock.