Penn FST, an exclusive distributor of Swagelok fluid handling products, demonstrated its custom hose assembly station at a November open house event celebrating its 50th year in business.
Penn Fluid System Technologies celebrated its 50th anniversary with an open house last week at its facility in Huntingdon Valley, Pa. At the event, Penn FST exhibited its fluid handling product line and demonstrated its hose cell and fabrication capabilities to an audience of customers and business partners.
A key element of the Penn FST Open House was the company’s Swagelok Coreflex hose assembly station. The Coreflex product line was acquired by Swagelok in April 2008 with the intention of broadening the company’s solution set in the high-end hose market. The PFA/PTFE-lined hoses are highly flexible and designed to provide chemical resistance in critical application environments. The hoses serve applications in biopharmaceutical, chemical, semiconductor, food, beverage & dairy, and other demanding industries.
Penn FST’s hose assembly station was added in May 2009, streamlining the company’s ability to turn customer orders around. Tracey Simpson, president of Penn FST, cites on-site hose assembly as a key addition that enables Penn to more adeptly meet the requirements of emergency status orders. For example, he says customers facing a hose failure typically can’t afford to wait a week for a replacement hose, but rather they need the hose immediately to prevent and/or limit downtime. With its assembly station, Simpson says Penn FST can turn customer orders around in as quickly as one day.
In addition to its hose assembly station, Penn FST’s 50th Anniversary Open House featured demos and booths displaying the entire Swagelok product line, including fittings, regulators, sanitary products, valves and manifolds, welding systems, gauges and transducers, filters, quick-connects, flowmeters, and tubing and tube support products.
According to Simpson, Swagelok has expanded its focus from fittings and valves to position as a more broad-based fluid handling solution provider. Driven by the vision of Art Anton, president and CEO of Swagelok, Simpson says the focus is on changing the perception of Swagelok as a manufacturer and supplier of quality components to a view of the company as a solution provider that can meet the needs of the fluid handling process from beginning to end, including custom fabrication work and engineering services.
Penn FST is the authorized sales & service center of Swagelok products, custom flexible hoses, measurement devices, and custom panel fabrication servicing parts of Pa., N.J., and Del.
