The Wholesaler Blog

Grundfos Pumps Corporation recently held a grand opening of its substantially enlarged training and fabrication facility in Allentown, Pa. The plant was expanded by 64,000 square feet, to a total of 104,000 square feet, at a cost of $4.5 million. Growth of the facility permits Grundfos to expand local assembly operations of commercial and industrial product and service and distribution throughout the eastern U.S. and Canada. The company has also increased training activities for partners on the East Coast.

During the opening, manufacturer’s reps, OEM partners, commercial engineering contractors and wholesale distributors learned about the expansion and how it now enables Grundfos to improve its outreach among customers in the Northeast. They received facility tours, saw assembly and test facility operations and spent time at multiple product stations within Grundfos’s impressive new mobile product laboratory, with a wide variety of working pump displays. The “trade show on wheels” occupies an entire 18-wheel truck with bold graphics outside. Inside is a classroom for hands-on training and a movie theater that can accommodate 40 or more visitors.

According to John Petrella, Allentown facility operations manager, the facility’s current staff of 25 will grow. “We plan to add between eight and 13 jobs here within the next 12 months,” he said. “And we expect that, as we take on new assembly operations, we will add five new jobs each year after that.”

Grundfos began operations in Allentown in 1988. A decade later the company began to assemble product there. The recent expansion to the facility added more floor space for service work, product assembly and the storage of up to $18 million in equipment inventory.