PT Coupling changing work schedule, expanding facilities

ENID, Okla. — PT Coupling, 1414 E. Willow, will return to a work schedule based on standard time after having a schedule 10 minutes ahead for nearly 50 years.

The time change was first put in place in 1972 or 1973, President Matt Parrish said, and was primarily in place to better meet the schedule of Champlin Refinery, which closed in 1984. The company will move to standard time effective April 3.

Parrish said 10-minute early schedule made meeting delivery times with the refinery an easier process.

“Their shift ended the same time our shifts ended. And it was just causing a lot of congestion, and our employees couldn’t get out of the parking lot because they had a lot more employees than we did,” Parrish said. “We just needed to get a head start to get our people out of the building.”

When the refinery closed, the early schedule was an easy thing to keep in place, as there wasn’t a clear need to change it at the time. Parrish said there has been more of a need to change the schedule in recent years.

“Now we’re feeling there is a need to change it because we have so many people that work remotely,” Parrish said. “And we’ve got other people that we do business with, now all around the world, and that 10 minutes is confusing when we’re trying to schedule meetings. Some of our facilities were on the regular time and then Enid was 10 minutes early, so we had confusion internally just trying to get things scheduled.”

In addition to the updated work schedule, PT Coupling also is in the process of expanding its facilities and capacity. Parrish said a new refinery will be up and running across the street at 1405 E. Willow that will allow the company to take advantage of changes in the marketplace, as well as make the process of smaller castings more efficient.

“It will be for stainless steel sand castings. Probably in the range of 15 pounds and lighter,” Parrish said. “We have the capability to do larger castings on the north side of the street, but this will give us an additional capacity to do the smaller stainless steel, which we are finding the demand for stainless has increased over the last few years. And even more so with the change in China, a lot of companies are moving their castings purchases to the U.S., so it’s a new opportunity for us to take advantage of.”

Parrish also said a bigger plan on expanding is in the works, which would probably require a new building to further expand PT Coupling’s foundry operations.

“And it will be mostly stainless steel that we’re doing over there, so we have plans to expand our stainless steel capacity there for higher production, as well as down the road maybe putting a distribution center on that side of the street, as well,” Parrish said.