10 MiMfg Magazine September / October 2022
INDUSTRY
Member Spotlight
Making Being Green Easier — and Less Messy
Member since December 2021 • Employs 13 Michigan workers • Learn more at swiftwall . com
If you ’ ve ever had to work or live somewhere while walls were being removed , added or repositioned , you know how dirty , dusty and unpleasant that process can be .
For manufacturers , especially in times of change , the need for temporary walls , partitions or barriers is not uncommon on the production floor , in warehousing or in the front office . In addition to being disruptive and possibly causing temporary shutdowns , it can become a significant expense . With conventional drywall construction , repositioning walls is essentially impossible and every 70 linear feet of temporary wall results in one ton of waste in a landfill , which is not good for the environment or your bottom line .
“ Compared to drywall , our SwiftWall product can be installed five times as fast . And tear down is 10 times as fast ,” says Zach Cesa , Director of Engineering at SwiftWall .
Founded in 2014 in Midland , SwiftWall ’ s manufacturing operations are still 100 percent in Michigan though their sales have since expanded to all 50 states and to Canada and Mexico . Their distribution has expanded to Nevada and Atlanta and they plan to open more distribution in the northeast and south to serve their growing customer base .
Cesa explains that a lot of the materials they use to manufacture their products have a recycled component to them and , since their products are reusable , SwiftWall has prevented thousands of tons of waste from ending up in landfills .
“ Meijer was one of our first customers and they now have installed SwiftWall in over 200 stores ,” said Cesa .
The Swiftwall products are not only more environmentally friendly but take less time to install and tear down compared to traditional drywall . This allows for more flexibility and less down time for manufacturers when the need arises for a temporary structure .
A CNC operator machines panels for SwiftWall ’ s adjustable height system .
There ’ s also an immediate cost benefit each time the product is re-used ( it is not long term but realized immediately upon use ). According to Cesa , customers typically begin to see a cost savings over drywall if they use SwiftWall more than one time . Since SwiftWall can be reused so many times and stored for future use , the time and cost savings — as well as the reduced environmental impact — can be huge .
Cesa says they ’ re looking at providing even more flexible solutions and tackling tougher challenges . For instance , the latest offering is SwiftWall Flex , which allows for adjustable heights to fit varying ceiling heights . This makes the product even more sustainable since walls can be reused in areas where the ceiling is lower without the need to cut the panels .
The SwiftWall system was recently used when tens of thousands of Afghan refugees needed rooms to stay in at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey . Cesa says the SwiftWall team rallied to supply 24,000 linear feet of wall , enough to build 600 rooms in six huge tents as temporary shelter for the refugees .
The future is not only greener for SwiftWall , it ’ s also very bright . In 2022 , SwiftWall was ranked as the 13th Fastest Growing Manufacturing Company by Inc . 5000 as well as being recognized as one of the Michigan 50 Companies to Watch Award , presented by Michigan Celebrates Small Business .
“ We ’ ve been around for about eight years , but we still have a startup culture , and that makes every day exciting ,” Cesa says . 6