When Atlas Pressed Metals was a young company, it was forced to look beyond automakers that buy about three-quarters of the parts made by the powder metals industry for business.

“Large auto companies don't usually look at companies with 20 employees,” said Jude Pfingstler, president of the family-owned manufacturer in DuBois.

Finding other markets for the gears, bearings and other specialty equipment Atlas makes is paying dividends as the growing company with 85 employees serves a more diverse range of customers and is less reliant on one market for its business. Less than a quarter of the parts it presses and sinters go to the auto industry; appliances, lawn and garden equipment and business machines take the rest.

“It has helped in some of the slowdowns in the markets,” said Pfingstler, 38, whose father, Richard “Dick” Pfingstler, and grandfather founded the business in 1980.

Such diversification, plus close attention to customers are important to business at Atlas, given the relatively small size of the powder metals fabrication industry at about $3 billion.

Producers such as Atlas mix blends of finely powdered iron, nickel, copper and other metals with additives and compact them with great force in small dies to shape custom-ordered gears, hinge equipment or bearings. The shaped pieces of metal are then heated, or “sintered,” in furnaces reaching more than 2,000 degrees to produce a part resilient to heat and stress.

The selling point for this process over traditional machining of parts ia mass production of consistently sized and detailed components.

“It's very repeatable. It can reproduce intricate shapes,” Jude Pfingstler said. “For something like gears, all those teeth are formed with one strike. The part comes off the press, and it continues to cycle. We can push out in some cases 2,000 components per hour on one machine.”

Blending the ingredients as powders allows producers to add substances to make parts magnetic or self-lubricating.

Atlas operates 30 presses and five furnaces at its 55,000-square-foot plant in the heart of the powder metals industry in North Central Pennsylvania, where about 40 percent of such products in the world are made.

Pfingstler admits, “There's a lot of people who can do what we do,” saying the company focuses on working closely with companies so they feel like they have an in-house producer of parts.

“There have been more companies consolidating over the past 15 years, so they're one of the remaining family-owned companies,” said Jim Dale, vice president for member and industry relations at the Princeton-based Metal Powder Industries Federation, which Dick Pfingstler recently led.

“It definitely is more of a personal touch because there is more at stake for them,” he said. “The competitive advantage is from their engineering and attention to the customer.”

Atlas has a full metallurgical lab with a Ph.D. on staff for exploring and testing different blends of powders, plus a large engineering department, Jude Pfingstler said.

The family feel at Atlas comes from having six Pfingstlers on staff.

In addition to Dick, who remains as CEO, Jude's brother Doug is a purchase manager, their sister Diane works in planning and customer service, their Uncle Tom works in the lab, and Uncle Joe is a technical sales manager.

Dick Pfingstler was an accountant before starting Atlas “in a 5,000-square-foot wood shed with maybe 10 employees,” his son said. A conservative approach to business helped the company stay secure, even when the recession seven years ago cut business by 40 percent and the staff to about 40 people.

Sales recovered by 2010 and have risen by about 8 percent annually since, said Jude Pfingstler, who declined to disclose more detailed financials.

New technology in powders has helped drive more sales as the engineers find ways to compact the materials into denser components. On the production floor, robotics have made the process more efficient.

The Atlas plant isn't just larger than when Jude and Doug Pfingstler started operating machines and “doing grunt work” during summers in their teen years.

“It's becoming a lot more automated,” Jude said. “There's very little labor throughout the process.”

Their father remains a constant, though.

“He's not on top of all the part numbers, like he used to be. But he still enjoys coming in. He knows financially what's going on,” Jude said.

David Conti is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 412-388-5802 or dconti@tribweb.com.

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