Tuesday, June 20, 2023–11:27 a.m.
-David Crowder, WRGA News-
Rome and Floyd County’s newest employer could be up and running by October or early November.
Harry Patel, managing partner with Swami Compounding, told the Rome-Floyd County Development Authority on Tuesday that the blueprints are expected to be delivered in the next month with installation set to begin in August. They are also waiting for the issuance of a permit from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
“We have applied for the permit on an expedited basis,” he said. “It takes 45 days for the permit to be issued, and it’s been about three weeks since we applied. We should have the permit by the end of July.”
Swami Compounding will be housed in a 110,000-square-foot manufacturing facility at 29 Westside Industrial Boulevard in West Rome. The company will start with 20 employees and increase to 60 with the current production line.
“We also have expansion plans where we will be adding a couple of more production lines,” Patel said. “It will be 100 people.”
Swami Compounding, LLC, is a start-up company that manufactures semi-finished natural and synthetic rubber compounds in strips and slab forms. They use fillers and different additives in the mix to engineer the rubber to their customer’s technical specifications and end use.
Their supplied engineered rubber compounds are always ‘made to order’ for customers or for companies further down the supply chain. Those customers include manufacturers of tires, mining conveyor belts, automotive floor mats, and windshield wiper blades, to name a few. Customers use the rubber compound in their extrusion or injection molding process to cast specific shapes and sizes.
Patel told the development authority that the company looked at a number of locations between Chattanooga and Atlanta. Rome was chosen due to its close proximity to major highways.
“Another thing was the infrastructure,” he said. “A lot of the buildings we looked at didn’t have heavy power. The water, the sewer, and the height of the building was the 32-foot minimum that we need for this production line. A lot of the other buildings were 20 feet or 22 feet clear. This was a building that had 33 feet clear height. So, it was the perfect fit for us.”
Patel also shared a video that explained the polymer manufacturing process during Tuesday’s meeting.