Hydro Aluminum Video Transcript

Back to Metal Fabrication in Mexico

Hydro Aluminum, a Norway-based global supplier of aluminum with activities throughout the value chain, performs state-of-the-art CNC machining, fabrication, assembly and contract manufacturing in Empalme, Sonora, Mexico, where it employs 73 and runs two shifts over a 55,000 square-feet facility.

Hydro’s Mexico aluminum fabrication, CNC machining and assembly operation, is a division of Hydro Aluminum North America, Inc., The plant handles moderate volume, high-labor content components and aluminum assemblies.

Facility and equipment highlights include CNC machining press operations, precision saws, drilling and tapping, manual TIG and robotic welding, assembly, vibratory de-burring, aqueous cleaning, painting, anodizing, and plating. Capabilities include precision machining, fabrication and assembly. Two fully-programmable CNC lathes from HAAS Automation have turning capacities of 10.3 by 20 inches and bar capacity of up to 2 inches. A cutoff machine simultaneously performs cut-to-length and chamfering operations. These machines alone have increased Hydro’s output from 150 to 600 pieces per hour for an automobile engine mount used by US automakers.

The Empalme, Mexico facility operates as a sister plant to Hydro Aluminum’s Phoenix facility, which performs extrusion and drawn tubing operations. Both benefit today from the increasing role played by solar technology in electricity generation. Hydro was the exclusive aluminum supplier to a massive project carried out by Nevada Solar One near Boulder City, Nevada.  The company manufactured aluminum frames for solar collectors installed on the southeast fringes of the city. The project, the third largest solar power plant in the world, generates in excess of 72 megawatts and powers 14,000 households.

In addition, Hydro’s Sonora and Arizona operations have supplied aluminum frames to a similar facility under construction in Spain. The Spanish solar array will have a generation capacity similar to that of Boulder City.

On an international level, Hydro, which employs 23,000 and operates in 40 countries, participates in everything from bauxite extraction to the production of rolled and extruded aluminum products and building systems. There are nine other North American plants in the North America division.

An additional Hydro Aluminum facility, a precision tubing facility in a different division, is located in Reynosa, Mexico. The Reynosa plant has been in production since 2006. It produces and delivers aluminum drawn tubing and tubular profiles primarily for automotive applications.