
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, January 23, 1994                   TAG: 9401280284
SECTION: ECONOMY                    PAGE: EC-14   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: KATHLEEN WILSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

20,000 SQUARE FEET - AND JUST ONE SOUL IN SIGHT

GETTING AN OPERATION up to speed is a big job, but not too big for just one man - if you don't mind being incredibly busy.

It has been just two months since National Peening, a Statesville, N.C.-based operation that refines and strengthens metal parts for manufacturers, signed a lease to open a plant in Salem.

For now, Roanoke National Peening is a one-man operation.

General Manager Mike Price is that one - busy - man. He is the only one on hand at the 20,000-square-foot plant at 2167 Industrial Drive to accept daily truckloads of machinery necessary to convert the facility from a paper goods distributor to a peening processing center.

The peening process is described as shooting pellets of metal against manufactured parts, smoothing and rounding them to eliminate imperfections.

The process - similar to sandblasting - uses air pressure to push metal balls through hoses. The balls, called shot, put microscopic dents in the machined parts.

National Peening has a contract with Ingersoll-Rand Co.'s rock drill division in Roanoke and came to the Roanoke Valley to cut transportation costs involved in shipping its parts from Statesville.

Managers for the operation, such as Price, are transferring here from Statesville, but several jobs will be filled by local workers. The local workers will operate the computers that run the peening process.

The jobs do not require computer knowledge and will pay about $6 an hour, the company said last November, when the industrial announcement was made.

The Statesville plant and another National Peening plant in Wilmington, N.C., peen parts for the automotive and aerospace industries.

\ NATIONAL PEENING\ A NEW NAME\ The company: National Peening refines and strengthens metal parts for machinery for the automotive and aerospace industries. The North Carolina company has another plant in Wilmington, N.C.

\ Headquarters: Statesville, N.C.

\ Roanoke Valley operations: National Peening will soon open a 20,000-square-foot peening processing center on 2167 Industrial Drive in Salem.

by CNB