Thursday, April 3, 2008 - 7:32 AM EDT
Buffalo firm lands thin-film deal
Business First of Buffalo - by Tracey Drury Business First
A Buffalo company will play a major role in a $9.8 million contract for precision thin-film products.
Williams Advanced Materials Inc. (WAM) will manufacture several components as part of a 16-month contract signed by its Thin Film Technology Inc. (TFT) unit with DRS Technologies Sensors & Targeting Systems.
The contract calls for providing Visi-Lid hermetic window assemblies and thin film hybrid circuits to DRS's Infrared Technologies division in Dallas.
Though assembly will take place at TFT's Buellton, Calif., facility, WAM will handle machining and plating of some structural components, as well as thin film metallization at its Buffalo facility, while a Milwaukee subsidiary provides optical materials coating.
WAM manufactures precious, non-precious and specialty metal products.
No additional jobs are expected to be created in Buffalo due to the contract, according to Patrick Carpenter, a spokesman for Brush Engineered Materials Inc., WAM's Cleveland-based parent company.
"It augers well for the technology and the way the Williams organization works well together in three locations to provide a high-tech material for the intended use," he says.
DRS, a major supplier of advanced night-vision systems, provides products to the military used to enhance soldiers' vision capability, survivability and mobility in low-light conditions and support military units in Iraq.
With 250 employees in Western New York, WAM operates from a facility on Hertel Avenue and another on Lockport Road in Sanborn.
WAM has completed several expansions and acquisitions in recent years, including an acquisition in February of the assets of Techni-Met Inc. of Windsor, Conn., a producer of precision precious-metal-coated flexible polymeric films. In 2007, WAM opened a new precision cleaning and reconditioning services facility in the Czech Republic.
