Advanced Finishing USA Celebrates 50 Years In Business
ERIE, PA – The family-owned Advanced Finishing USA (AFUSA) is marking 50 years in business this month. Then Penn State engineer and Erie native, Walter J. Yahn, founded the company in 1970. Yahn foresaw the growth of the powder coatings industry and its potential contribution to manufacturing in the region. He established Advanced Finishing U.S.A. to develop a full array of powder coating technologies and capabilities. In 1970, AFUSA became an official business in the Erie community — originally as Plastic Coating and Molding — with just a used pizza oven and a used powder coating gun. From these humble beginnings, AFUSA started doing business for local companies, with a few friends and high school students as employees.
Yahn was an early student of Deming and the other pioneers of the Total Quality Management movement. He understood the importance of customer focus, quality and service. With these principles firmly rooted, Yahn built his company into a leading powder coating specialty business, creating a reputation for quick response, customer focus and attention to quality. Today, the 80,000-square-foot facility has served customers such as General Electric, Alstom, Mitsubishi, Komatsu, Westinghouse, Kawasaki, Disney, Bombardier and the U.S. Military.