BROOKFIELD — When Panelmatic Inc. outgrew its manufacturing facility in Boardman, the company split its control-house product line into another division and relocated to Brookfield.

It was a move leaders at the Cincinnati-based company had been mulling for some time, but they were a bit hesitant.

The move didn’t happen until they became so busy inside the too-small quarters in Mahoning County that they started to turn away projects.

Panelmatic Building Solutions officially started operations in July 2019 at the Parkway Drive plant, a move that appears to have worked out well.

It’s where 30 or so employees manufacture large steel custom control houses for a wide array of industries, from oil and gas to power generation and transmission. The control panels are built and shipped from another of Panelmatic’s manufacturing sites across the U.S.

In Brookfield is where the components are married, tested and shipped.

“The way it works is, if we get a building order with panels in it, we farm the panels out to other shops, so we’re making a self-supporting structure,” said Dan Vodhanel, vice president / general manager of Panelmatic Building Solutions.

The Parkway Drive location, a nondescript manufacturing building within eyesight of the state Routes 82 and 7 intersection, is 75,000 square feet. The fabrication shop in Boardman, where Panelmatic still produces control panels, was 14,000-square-feet.

That small size made for some challenges and prevented the company from taking orders for larger buildings, not a problem faced in Brookfield. In addition, there was just one production line in Boardman, so if a delivery date changed, rearranging the line, although needed, was a chore — the buildings had to be moved outside and put back into order inside.

There were two primary reasons for the move.

“Our business was increasing exponentially,” Vodhanel said. “We were getting too many orders. We were having to turn work down; we couldn’t fit them in the facility. The second thing is these buildings are getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. They used to be like 200-square-feet buildings. Now we are building 1,600-square-feet buildings.”

The building was previously occupied by Legacy Measurements, which did work in the oil and gas industry. Panelmatic Building Solutions assumed Legacy Management’s lease when the company started having financial problems.

The company just won a two-building order from Panelmatic’s control panel facility in Houston and is on the verge of starting two big oil and gas projects, buildings sized 24 feet by 64 feet. Now they are finishing a building that will used at a power substation in West Virginia.

“We’re a very flexible company because we’re a job shop,” Vodhanel said. “We not making widgets, we’re not making the same thing 100 times. Every job is custom, it’s unique.

“A lot of what we build as a job shop is spec driven by the customers. They dictate to us what they want, what kind of metal, what kind of finish, what kind of lights … they tell us what gauge of metal we have to use,” he said.

The company will also go to the site and assemble the buildings, most of which are made in two pieces.

Recently, Panelmatic Building Solutions and its parent company were recognized by the Youngstown Warren Regional Chamber and MAGNET as the 2020 recipient of the Excellence in Manufacturing Award for “their growth, as well as investment in, and ongoing commitment to” the local community, said Sarah Boyarko, the chamber’s chief operating officer.

The award is given out yearly to a chamber member in Trumbull, Mahoning or Columbiana counties. It focuses on a company’s longevity in business, growth, product innovation and achievement.