Facility Redesign and Expansion Leads to Streamlined Processing at HighTech Finishing

As the innovative leader in the aviation decorative interior plating industry, HighTech Finishing is committed to investing in its business, people and processes to ensure every plated item is of the highest quality and completed on time. Recently, HighTech spent several months reviewing the physical arrangement of its Houston headquarters and realized that relocating several items would improve parts flow.

  “At HighTech, we believe strongly in continuous improvement of our plating process,” said Lee Whitley, president of HighTech Finishing. “By modifying the layout of our processing facilities, we’re able to increase parts flow while still maintaining turn times on even the largest of orders.  The new layout also enhances the maintenance of the tanks, which is a critical element in the overall quality of the plating. We can also run multiple processing tasks concurrently to enhance our overall production capability.”

This redesign has allowed HighTech to improve its industry-leading turn times on even the most intricate plating finishes. “For example, HighTech’s Pearllite finish has become increasingly more popular over the past few years,” explained Whitley. “It’s a unique process to run and to now have dedicated tanks to run this finish, we minimize the turn times and maintain efficient production flow.  Everyone receives their parts on schedule.”

HighTech’s commitment to its customer’s demands also extends into ongoing research and development specifically for aviation interior plating. Through its testing program, the company has found ways to improve on its current finishes and create new ones to meet market demand. In addition, the R&D program has unearthed processes that enable HighTech to seek ways to provide even higher quality and better value.

HighTech also remains firm in its commitment to work only with aviation customers. “Aircraft operators can be demanding and with our commitment to producing only aviation plating, our chemical baths are never compromised with industrial or commercial parts. They have been developed for the unique requirements of an aircraft’s interior and that’s the way we choose to operate.”

For close to 20 years, HighTech Finishing has exclusively served the aviation industry, supplying superior-quality decorative metal plating for interior hardware and trim parts for business and head-of-state aircraft. HighTech Finishing offers nine plating families that cover more than 125 standard and custom-matched finishes and has the largest available production capacity in this niche market. In late 2002, HighTech Finishing received the ISO9001/AS9100 quality management system certification and is the only aviation decorative plating supplier to have received this designation.

For more information, call HighTech Finishing at 800-949-0124 or visit them on the Web at www.htf.net