GREENSBORO - When it was announced last week that Bodycote Diamond Black is coming to Greensboro and occupying the former Greensboro Printing building at 7856 McCloud Road, no one was happier than Jag Sankar, Ph.D., and professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Center for Advanced Materials and Smart Structures at NC A&T University.
The commercial metal coating business maps almost perfectly onto the research currently being done at A&T and will mean dramatic advantages for the program.
"It will have a tremendous impact," Sankar said. "It is a very exciting time for us. We are doing the same things they are, but our work is R&D, and they're doing it on the commercial end. They do coating commercially, and we research innovative and futuristic coatings."
Bodycote offers metallurgical coatings for anti-corrosion, wear resistance, metal cutting and decorative applications. The Greensboro facility will coat items such as faucets, doorknobs, locks and other metal objects. It eventually will expand into automotive parts.
Bodycote will be operating in the building formerly occupied by Greensboro Printing Inc., which filed for bankruptcy earlier this year.
The plant will at first have around 30 employees, but that number should rise to around 100 over the next couple of years, according to Darrell Lewis, director of marketing for the North America division of Bodycote.
A&T has had a Center for Advanced Materials and Smart Structures for five years and stands to benefit tremendously from the nearby presence of the company.
"They are going to donate some of their machines for our use," Sankar said.
According to Sankar, the machinery will be a few years old but can be put to good use in a research capacity.
Bodycote will spend $5 million in new machinery for the plant and should have the equipment in by March 2002 and begin operations in April 2002.
Sankar said that A&T and Bodycote are also planning to publish joint journal articles. But the big benefit will be the hands-on experience of the students.
"Students can do master's and Ph.D. projects while working at the Bodycote plant," he said. "Now, in a 10-minute drive, we will be able to do much more than we could have done by flying places before. It is a beautiful relationship."
With a total of 245 plants in 21 countries, The Bodycote Group, parent company of Bodycote Diamond Black, is based in Macclesfield, England. The group operates in the United Kingdom, Europe, United States, the Middle East and Far East.
The presence of the program at A&T had a positive influence on Bodycote's decision to come to Greensboro.
"We started to look at locations that best suited our needs and narrowed it down to five or six cities," Lewis said.
