Cranberry Township-based MSA Safety celebrated its new 20,000 square-foot manufacturing facility in that city with a ribbon cutting Friday, Sept. 17.
The opening of the facility establishes the Cranberry Township campus as the global center of excellence for gas detection technology. The single-story manufacturing facility located next to MSA’s global headquarters primarily will be used to assemble products in the companies multiple fixed gas and flame detection line.
“With our recent acquisition of Bacharach, Inc., MSA’s portable and fixed gas detection business today represents more than a third of global revenue,” Nish Vartanian, MSA chairman, president and CEO, said. “The facility we’re opening today will help drive cost savings for that business while enabling our team to better leverage the many gas detection resources we already have in place right here in western Pennsylvania. Those resources include the expertise of 300 skilled factory associates and more than 200 engineers, just in Cranberry Township alone.”
The new facility creates an opportunity to bring additional manufacturing jobs to western Pennsylvania in the future, he said.
The company’s Cranberry Township site opened in 1985, and was renovated to accommodate the company’s corporate headquarters in 2010. The headquarters was relocated from O’Hara Township, Penn.
The 320-acre campus is home to the company’s John T. Ryan Research and Development lab, as well as manufacturing facilities and class-A office space.
“As a market leader in both portable and fixed gas and flame gas detection products, we’re excited to be able to invest in this area of our business in western Pennsylvania, where MSA employs approximately 1,250 people,” Vartanian said. “We’ve had tremendous success with our ALTAIR® portable gas monitor line, our XCell® Sensor technologies, the recent launch of our groundbreaking Ultima® 5000 Series Gas Monitors, and the deployment of new connected technologies via our Safety io subsidiary. All of these innovations originated out of Cranberry Township, and it’s exciting to know that we are still expanding on MSA’s 107-year legacy of manufacturing excellence in our region.”