Nighthawk Is Expanding
BY Herschel Smith
6 years, 2 months ago
BERRYVILLE — High-end gun-maker Nighthawk Custom is expanding, adding 4,000 square feet to its work space to improve efficiency and productivity.
The new building, which sits near the company’s current facility, will house about 20 Nighthawk gunsmiths and about 10 support employees. Nelson Davis, chief operating officer for Nighthawk, said the new space will streamline the process of making custom firearms and is the gun-maker’s first stab at lean manufacturing, a system to minimize waste without affecting productivity.
The cost of the expansion is in the neighborhood of $750,000. The company plans to move workers into the new space in November with the area fully integrated by the end of the year. The company received a $125,000 Community Development Block Grant through the Arkansas Economic Development Commission for new equipment that will be part of the expansion.
Nighthawk employs about 55 workers and has been building 1911-style pistols and other custom firearms since 2004. The company offers several pistol models that are further customized based on customer specifications with a starting price tag of about $3,500.
Davis said the current layout isolates gunsmiths and requires them to go through a maze of hallways and offices as they build pistols, which adds for wasted time, miscommunication and general inefficiency. The new facility built with the input of Nighthawk’s employees, will have an open floor plan with the gunsmiths working in close proximity to one another and with support staff close at hand.
So apparently they’ve done a time-motion study and figured out that they can do more if they redesign the workspace. Good. I don’t have a Nighthawk 1911 (because they haven’t sent me one for free to review), but I do hope they are able to do this without reliance upon the large banks that can call in notes at any time, or going public with stock or other ownership.
I hope they don’t make the same mistake some of the large gun manufacturers have made.
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