In a particularly green, winding section of South Carolina sits a city called Westminster that is also a particularly thriving manufacturing center. Boeing, BMW, Caterpillar and BorgWarner have plants in the vicinity, and the competition for workers is fierce. Global metal-cutting tooling manufacturer Sandvik Coromant has a plant here, too, a 328,000-square-foot facility that over the past decade has steadily established itself as a real workhorse. The plant's performance, and the people who drive it, distinguish Sandvik Westminster as a 2022 IndustryWeek Best Plants Winner. Sandvik Coromant's Westminster plant, which came to the company during its acquisition of cutting-tools maker Valenite in 2002, primarily manufactures cemented carbide inserts-over 2,300 types-for aerospace, automotive and oil and gas tooling. In addition, Westminster produces over 50 different grades of ready-to-press (RTP) powder and customized round tools for industry and refurbishes those round tools for its customers, many of them big names in industry. It has a competitive advantage by being the only plant in the Sandvik Coromant family that produces inserts, round tools and the materials used to manufacture them.
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