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Virginia Forge Company, a division of MFC Group (Meadville Forge, Meadville, PA), is in the process of more than doubling its capacity to produce wheel hub forgings, paralleling the growing demand for automotive and light truck hub assembly units.
Opened in 1997 in Buchanan, Virginia, the division claims to be operating the United States' most technologically advanced and most efficient forging operation.
The USD $19 million project -- the plant's second major expansion -- will raise Virginia's capacity to supply the bearing industry with raw as-forged and finished forgings for auto and light truck wheel bearing hub assembly units.
Although the expansion will add a few workers, Virginia Forge's highly automated plant will still employ fewer than 75 people across three shifts.
Virginia Forge is vertically integrated, with shearing, forging, machining and heat treating capabilities. Forgings begin with its 2,500 ton fully automated vertical 5-station continuous transfer press, producing 30 hubs and spindles per minute, or one every two seconds.
The forging cell uses 2500kw induction heating to melt 170 pounds of steel billet per minute. Heat treating in endothermic furnaces has a capacity of 6,000 pounds, integral quench, and tempering. Hub and spindle machining operations are completely automated on dual-spindle CNCs, requiring no manual chucking, handling or human intervention. Each operator is responsible for up to four cells.
Among Virginia Forge's largest customers is The Timken Company (USA), supplied with finished forgings destined for Timken's OEM and aftermarket automotive and light truck wheel bearing units.
Outside Meadville, the parent company's other standalone operation is Carolina Forge, formerly Nucor Bearing Products, which it acquired in 2001. Located in Wilson, South Carolina, the plant produces similar items to Virginia, but also other machined steel parts for industrial, marine, and agricultural uses.
In 2005, Meadville Forge purchased the machining assets of Gallade Technologies of Saginaw, Michigan. Gallade was a short-lived wheel hub bearing manufacturing experiment by its eponymous German parent, Gallade Umformtechnik GmbH & Co. KG, which also produces wheel hub bearing components. The Gallade equipment was reportedly moved to Meadville's machining operation in Cambridge Springs, PA, and also to the Wilson plant.
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