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Pouring metal into an investment casting mold.

Avalon Closing Investment Casting Plant

March 15, 2022
Two Cleveland-area operations, a foundry and machine shop, will cease production by June 30, according to a WARN filing earlier this month.

Avalon Precision Metalsmiths plans to close two Cleveland-area plants – an investment casting foundry and a machine shop – according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) filing with the Ohio Dept. of Job & Family Services. The notification identified those operations’ “financial performance and organizational restructuring” as the cause of the shutdowns.

“The company expects this closure of this facility to be permanent,” according to the filing, signed by Deepashri Khare, chief human resource officer.

The shutdown will begin on May 4, affecting all 55 workers at the two plants. All operations will be ceased by June 30.

No other public announcement of the closings has been issued.

Avalon Precision Metalsmiths was formed in 2014 following the purchase of Precision Metalsmiths Inc. in Markesan, WI, by Avalon Precision Casting, Cleveland, bringing together a specialty producer of precision castings up to 100 lb. (Avalon) with a producer of smaller (up to 20 lbs.) investment castings. The group’s finished products include parts for pumps and valves, oil-and-gas fixtures, food and dairy equipment components, military equipment, and general industrial parts.

In 2019, the group was taken over by Sigma Electric Manufacturing Corp., Garner, NC, a manufacturer of machined ferrous and nonferrous castings. The group has eight diecasting and sand casting plants in India, a diecasting plant in Mexico, the investment casting plant in Wisconsin, and a metal-stamping plant in York, PA.