Delco military contractor plans layoff as demand for decoys drops
Chemring, which bought Alloy Surfaces in Aston in 1993, is considering whether to sell the business or close it.
Dozens of workers in Delaware County are expected to lose their jobs as a military contractor weighs whether to close its facility there or sell the business.
Alloy Surfaces Co. Inc. expects to lay off roughly 52 employees at 121 N. Commerce Dr. in Aston, according to a notice the company filed with the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry.
The business is part of Chemring Group PLC, a company founded in 1905 and based in England, which says it specializes in technology manufacturing and services for the defense, aerospace, and security industries. Chemring has some 2,700 employees around the world, and production facilities in four countries. It acquired Alloy Surfaces in 1993.
Chemring supplies members of NATO, and counts NASA and Space X among its customers.
Alloy Surfaces has had contracts with Britain’s Royal Air Force and the U.S. military among other customers, and has manufactured decoys that use infrared energy to trick missiles into following them.
“Over the past decade Chemring has seen a steady decrease in demand for its Alloy Surfaces Company’s pyrophoric decoys,” a spokesperson for the company, Rupert Pittman, said via email on Friday. “Despite significant effort and engagement with its customers [Alloy Surfaces] has received insufficient orders to viably sustain operations as a stand-alone business.”
Pittman added that Chemring is considering “strategic options” for the business, which include selling Alloy Surfaces or closing it after fulfilling all remaining orders by the end of the year.
Layoffs are expected to start around Aug. 30 and continue until the facility closes, which could happen by the end of December, according to the layoff notice. Jobs at that facility include assemblers, chemical equipment operators, and maintenance technicians.
Alloy Surfaces’ workforce grew from around 80 employees in the 1990s to 616 workers in 2007 across three facilities in Delaware County, when the company grew because of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A year later, The Inquirer reported, the business had a contract of up to $347 million with the U.S. Army for military decoys.
Then, in 2012, Alloy announced that it would lay off up to 145 employees as demand declined for its decoys to protect aircrafts, the Philadelphia Business Journal reported at the time.
More recently, in 2021, Alloy announced that it would lay off 63 workers in Aston.