This upcoming Sunday is considered to be an unofficial holiday for American sports fanatics across the county, as the Seattle Seahawks and Denver Broncos face off in Super Bowl 48. As this game has been played for almost half of a century, it has garnered certain reputations over the years: it has the best (and most expensive) commercials of the year, it’s the longest game of the year (due to all of those commercials), wacky prop bets, a Gatorade shower for the winning coach, and a sunny local to play the game.

However, for the first time in the game’s history, it will be played in New Jersey. Right across the Hudson River from downtown New York city, the anticipated coldest Super Bowl in history will be held. The reason for the NFL to buck the usual mild climates of Florida and California mostly has to do with the recent construction of Met Life Stadium.

Stadium Features

Met Life Stadium has a lot technological features, along with having the second highest seating capacity in the league. Here’s a list of some of the more impressive features the stadium boasts:

• 2.1 million square feet in venue size
• 82,500 capacity for football games
• Four 30 foot by 118 foot HD video display boards in each end zone
• Over 2,100 HD monitors throughout the stadium, capable of receiving 70 different channels
• Free wi-fi through out the stadium

On top of all of these features, Met Life is also the only stadium that hosts two teams, which requires an impressive amount of re-configuring from week to week.

Home of the Giants and the Jets

One of the biggest design challenges for creating a stadium that will host two teams, is the ability to create a home feeling for both squads. There are a couple of cool features that Met Life has to accommodate this requirement.
The stadium is designed with mostly neutral colors. The seats are grey, and the outside is covered in aluminum louvers so that high powered lights with blue and green filters can be changed out, making the outside of the stadium team specific depending on who’s playing that night.

As for the field, the only section of the actual turf that requires replacing is the end zones. The fifty yard line is covered with the NFL logo, while the end zones will be changed with a specialized turf square moving machine, to read either, “Giants” or “Jets” depending on which team is playing that day.

Add in all of the signage and merchanise stores that need to be changed, the whole process only takes about two, eight-hour working days. A pretty impressive feat considering the size of the stadium. The Met Life Stadium Website has a cool video that breaks down the change over process.

So while you’re holding your breath, hoping that your bet that the National Anthem will go over the mark of 2 minutes 23 seconds (yes, there are casinos that are actually posting that), take a second to admire the ever-continuous construction project that is Met Life Stadium.

Monday Manufacturing Round Up

As most operations get back to their first normal five-day work week, in the past three weeks, the economy and manufacturing are getting their report cards for the year that has just passed. Statistics are showing that the general economy is improving, along with an increase in manufacturing, and a slight increase in housing numbers. However, there are some that find holes in the manufacturing world ranging from potential issues in generational gaps, and an over valued view of what manufacturing means to our job market:

• Bloomberg reports on the increase in manufacturing at the end of last year. Construction saw some of its highest numbers since 2008, and an increase in consumer confidence has the automobile industry smiling.
• Planet Money on the other hand feels that the importance of manufacturing to create U.S. jobs may not be that important. Here they have a visual breakdown of the U.S. job market within the Service industry.
• As Congress comes back to work, Market Place Economy discusses the potential ramifications of unemployment benefits, and what might happen to the 1.3 million unemployed that lost their benefits in December.
• Manufacturing.net touches on the efforts being made by manufacturers across the country attempting to reach out to the youth of the U.S. and show what potential employment options there are in skilled manufacturing jobs.

Welcome to 2014. We hope that your Holiday Season, and New Year were fantastic, and we hope that your 2014 will be even better.

Metal Products Company Blog

By John Stokes (john@metalproducts.com)

Who We Are:

Metal Products Company has been serving the plumbing and electrical industries for over 25 years by providing high-quality, American made, metal stamping parts. Most of our main product line deals with pipe protection and installation, most of which are required by building codes across the country. Over the years, we’ve looked to new industries and products to continue growing and improving as a company. As we continue to provide our pipe protection products, we keep working to expand into the HVAC and custom manufacturing industries. Located in the Pacific Northwest, we service wholesalers across the country with our Building Product line.

Goals of this blog:

The purpose of this blog is to be a place where we can keep readers updated on our current custom manufacturing projects, make announcements on our new machinery acquisitions and other general company announcements, and help explain what our machines within our custom manufacturing department can do.

How We Started in Custom Manufacturing:

Due to the nature of our metal stamping business, tool and die maintenance is integral to production. Eventually, we wanted to make our tooling and die maintenance as an in-house operation. The decision to bring our die maintenance in-house required us to acquire machinery such as CNC mills, and wire EDM machines. Both of these machines have a large variety of custom manufacturing applications, from cutting die components to short run, prototype parts. As time has gone, we’ve added grinders, multiple mills, a laser cutter, and a CNC press brake to our custom manufacturing operation. We continue to take new custom manufacturing jobs throughout Oregon, Northern California, and South-West Washington. Look for more information about these custom manufacturing capable machines in our Custom Manufacturing pages on our website.

Contact Information:

For any questions regarding our custom manufacturing capabilities, custom stamping capabilities, or Building Products line, visit our contact information page for our phone, email, and fax contacts.