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Solar Seal has started to notify industry companies that it will close its plant in South Easton, Mass. This news comes after the company, part of O3 Industries announced it would open a new plant in a Norwich business park in Connecticut.
A June 6 notice to customers reads, “As you are aware, Solar Seal has faced several pandemic related challenges over the past many months, including dealing with global uncertainties in supply, pricing, staffing, maintenance and logistics. Unfortunately, our aging equipment has suffered immensely resulting in our maintenance efforts becoming unsustainable on both an economical and logistical basis. We have been working diligently to maintain our commitment to providing quality glass products within an acceptable time frame to you, our valued customers.
Solar Seal recognizes that we have not been able to provide this level of service while functioning as a profitable business unit. It is with deepest regret that we are announcing a phased closing of our 55 Bristol Dr, South Easton, MA manufacturing location of Solar Seal LLC between now and mid Q3 2022.”
According to the notice, Solar Seal is “committed to manufacturing and delivering existing orders in house,” and customers will be contacted by someone within the customer service team to discuss individual order status and proposed manufacture and delivery.
“We anticipate continuation of existing order completion until sometime in mid August, at which time we will have worked through our existing order book. Please accept our deepest apologies as we endeavor to help our customers through this difficult time. We thank you for your loyalty to our brand and our dedicated employees.”
Solar Seal originally planned to continue the operations in Massachusetts as “a 200-mile radius, heavy fabricated, smaller projects-based business,” Jeff Heintz, Solar Seal Architectural LLC, senior vice president, told USGNN™ last November. “The facility in Connecticut is more geared toward commercial and major projects as a completely independent business; outfitted with the latest and best in automation, quality control systems and product output capacities.”
At press time, representatives of Solar Seal had not responded to USGNN’s request for comment.
The phased closing is a bit off.
We had large project orders placed with Solar Seal and were simply told the orders were cancelled and they didn’t have enough stock in house to produce them.
This was not what we expected from a company that we worked with for 37 years.