Rafn Company recently completed a new addition to the Torr Technologies manufacturing facility in Auburn to house new equipment and improve their overall work efficiency.
We built the two-story 6,000 square foot structure using CMU exterior walls and a steel interior structure for the 2nd floor using heavy beams to provide a clear work area across the 53-foot wide building. The foundation consists of a 2-foot thick concrete mat slab with several depressions to accommodate various equipment specifications, including a 35,000 lb autoclave, a commercial hydraulic material lift, and a walk-in industrial oven and cooler. After about a year of using the space, we checked in with the owner, Greg Lindstrom, to see how things were going.
Shawn: To start, what does Torr Technologies build and for whom?
Greg: We build what are called reusable vacuum bagging tools that are used to manufacture composite parts and laminates of all kinds for the aerospace, recreational, and electronics industries. We build them for major manufacturers all over the world, big companies you see out there, especially in defense. We replaced a single-use, throwaway process that used plastic bags with a reusable silicone rubber system that goes for, you know, anywhere between 50 to 1,000 cycles, even more sometimes.
Shawn: Was Torr the first to provide a reusable option like you described?
Greg: No, Torr was not the first. I built reusable vacuum bags when I was working at another company in 1981, but there was not a lot of demand due to the sensitive nature of the seal system. Once Torr started in 1989 and we developed our own unique seal, that’s when things took off, around 1992.
Shawn: Does the concept of a reusable silicone rubber system apply to everything that Torr does regardless of the scale? From the small bags to the larger molds?
Greg: Yes, in general. What we provide to customers who manufacture aerospace components saves the customer money, reduces their impact on the environment, and makes a superior product.
Shawn: How did you come to have your current facility in Auburn?
Greg: Well, when I started Torr, I found a little strip mall industrial place. My brother went in while I was still working at Zip-Vac, got it fixed up and painted, and then we moved in. We were there from 1989 to 1997. We had one bay (in this commercial building), then expanded to two bays when we started getting larger jobs. At that point, my brother said, “We need to get our own building…”, so he started looking and he came across our current property and put together a deal with the owner, and we bought it. We ended up with one tenant at the end of the building for about ten years or so until we mentioned we’d like to occupy the rest of the building and they willingly moved to a new space in Fife. We did some energy upgrades in 2010 to this building; we put solar on the roof that, according to PSE, was the largest solar installation on a privately owned building in their territory at the time.
Shawn: What are the space needs of your operation? (Was the main driver of the addition that you were starting to outgrow the current space?)
Greg: We were never really bulging at the seams, but we were getting there. But the biggest thing that drove the addition was that we didn’t have an autoclave of our own, and we had no place to put an autoclave. We had looked at putting a tent outside and sticking it underneath or doing a bunch of other stuff…and that’s when, it was pretty much my call at some point, I just sat down and started drawing the thing out. We were using other people’s autoclaves (in the region), driving those big molds all over Puget Sound trying to get them cured. We used the neighbors for a while, then went down to Sumner, and then we ended up going to Everett all the time. So, driving to Everett, you know, with one of those molds on a trailer and bringing it back, it’s not efficient and a little dangerous as well. Plus, driving in traffic and trying to get your driver back in any reasonable amount of time could be an all-day thing just to go up there and pick up a mold and come back, at least half the day sometimes. Overall, we are now more efficient and have fewer trucks on the road, which is a benefit that we explained to the City of Auburn.
Shawn: What is special about the addition in terms of your manufacturing workflow?
Greg: Well, everything is in one area. Everything is being laid up, cured, post-cured, and finished right there. It’s just all in this short little space. It keeps it all together, so we’re not moving all over the place, even within the building. We have it all in the addition now, so it’s just working really well.
Shawn: What were your “must haves” in the design of the new addition?
Greg: To accommodate the autoclave and the (walk-in) oven, a layup space for the rubber room, a new climate-controlled server/IT room, and the bigger material lift to get large items moved between floors.
Shawn: What is special about the addition in terms of accommodating your new equipment?
Greg: I mean, the building is completely tailored for it. Everything about that space is custom for those exact pieces of equipment, and it has worked out really well. For example, the cooler (upstairs) that is recessed into the floor, you had to drop the structure, you know, to accommodate a four-inch recess within a structural slab for that cooler, so materials roll straight in and out without having to go up and down a ramp. That was a change that we made in real time, and I was glad you were able to accommodate it because we were out there looking at where the old freezer was and what we could do to make that situation better.
Shawn: Thanks for your time and insight into your operation, Greg. It was a pleasure working with you on the project.
Shawn Scott
Shawn was the Project Manager for our Torr Technologies Building Addition project. He has a broad range of industry experience in both publicly and privately funded development, including complex multi-family, mixed-use, and commercial projects. Fun fact: Shawn is an audiophile and saw U2 in concert at the Sphere in Las Vegas.