Released on January 13, 2010

L A Aluminum Casting Co., Hayden, Idaho, recently finalized two military contracts worth more than $5 million and has installed new casting and machining equipment to keep up with the growing demand.

According to Michelle Richter, L A Aluminum’s sales and marketing manager, the company has won a contract for $2.15 million to produce fittings for towable tanks that are used to transport water and fuel to military soldiers in the field. Richter declined to disclose the details of the second contract but said all the parts would be delivered in 2010.

In anticipation of the ramp up, L A Aluminum has added two new reverse tilt casting machines and is expecting to install a new machining lathe later this month. The company installed another new machining center in January 2009.

“Military contracts are responsible for the exponential growth of L A Aluminum in the last two years,” Richter said. “The new machines will be part of flexible lean cells, which will better match the complexity of castings going through the machine shop on a daily basis. We will have flexible cells where we can run multiple operations in a variety of configurations.”

L A Aluminum is a permanent mold aluminum metalcasting facility and machine shop making castings primarily for the OEM market. According to Richter, the company has made castings for the military since it began doing business, but it also produces parts for the wind power turbine, nuclear and dental equipment markets.