TDF Metal Finishing

Today TDF is still an evolving company with the backing of a worldwide, world class family of manufacturing companies as part of the Phenna Group.

Still a standalone company, TDF is moving quickly into the modern world of today’s business, evolving into a company capable of meeting the needs of machine shops, fabricators and OEMs throughout the region and serving a multitude of industries.

From medical to aerospace, high tech electronics to some heavy industrial products, TDF is a capable and diverse finishing house, able to meet the needs of many advanced manufacturers.

TDF offers a very wide array of finishes and can be a one stop finisher for many machine shops and manufacturers as well as supply other customers with specialty, unique or a “cut above” quality.

Anodizing and Hard Coat Anodizing with excellent quality, price, and delivery available are TDF’s largest specialty finishes. Whether it’s the difficult to process parts, parts that have intricate masking or high- volume jobs that need fast turnaround, TDF has the capability and flexibility to say “yes” in some of the most challenging situations Electroless Nickel, chromating / passivating of aluminum, copper, tin, silver, gold, and zinc plating are more of the finishes TDF offers with the quality and throughput to help serve our customers.

And as Henry Ford said about painting his Model T’s, the customer can have “any color as long as it’s black”. Need Black Oxide, Black Passivate, Black Endurion, Black Ebonol or even Black Zinc? TDF has a department dedicated to blackening processes for the gun industry, heavy industrial and even military and aerospace applications.

For medical and other applications TDF offers both electropolishing and passivation services. Covering all types of passivation and with a large electropolish tank, TDF serves many industries requiring stainless steel alloys with precision finishing. With a separate
clean room production area, the ability to bag and tag parts in medical industry approved packaging while producing high quality work, we can meet even the most stringent specifications.

Peripheral services like bagging and tagging for medical products, bead or shot blasting for precision parts, drop shipping, inventory of customer supplied material or adding any needed packaging services are also available at TDF. Development of special fixturing or masking tools is a specialty and we have had some great successes in this area. TDF tries to find a way to say yes and collaborate with customers to find a path to shared success.

With all these processes and services available and willingness to work with customers, TDF is a solution for all your finishing needs.

Currently ISO 9001 Certified, TDF has approvals from many OEM’s, in the aerospace, military and medical industries. NADCAP Accreditation for aircraft and other aerospace work is well underway and we expect to be scheduling our NADCAP Audit by early spring 2022.

Our Quality Department is staffed by two younger employees, each with over 10 years of experience at TDF. Our QC team is beginning a training grant from the State of Mass for continued education and training. This year long apprentice like program involves both internal and external training delivered by State of Mass approved companies.

Continuing to look toward the future TDF is also participating in a CO-OP program, partnering with Essex North Shore Agricultural and Technical High School also in Danvers. Two CO-OP students from the technical school’s Natural and Environmental Sciences shop are training in chemical analysis and wastewater treatment. TDF has an in-house water treatment plant that requires a state licensed operator, and the next generation of employees is already here and learning.

In order to better serve our customers, it is important to us that we take care of our employees! They are the lifeblood of TDF and continuing in the tradition of founder Tom Ferrairo we have revamped, improved, and applied technology to everything we could to make things better and easier for our workers and friends.

Starting with an exciting new health insurance plan that offers low co-pays and deductibles to the newly added long term and life insurance for the employee and their dependents we are doing all that we can. With vision and dental, a matching 401k plan, the benefits and choices for employees are vast. Add in an app on their phone that ties into the facial recognition time clock and accesses all their HR info and as a method to communicate with management 24/7, good communication and information is at their fingertips.

Anodizing, plating, and metal finishing in general, is labor intensive work and the days are long. For our workers, knowing that they and their families are well taken care of with the company generously supporting them makes those long days walking, carrying, and standing over hot process tanks a little easier. We value our employees tremendously. With an average time of employment of over 12 years the care and concern for employees that Tom Ferrairo started has continued, expanded, and been transitioned to the latest technology. And yes, when our English as a Second Language employees needed help, we brought in bilingual speakers so nothing would be lost in translation.

Whenever a family business is sold typically the family members who worked and ran the company move on. Things do change and with the departure of Tom and the prior management team, TDF needed new leadership.

As 100 years of metal finishing experience walked out the door in Tom and his team, 100 years of experience walked in.

The Phenna Group looked around New England for an experienced metal finisher with management, P&L responsibility, leadership, and technical experience. That is when Marko Duffy’s name came up.

Marko Duffy has been in metal finishing in New England for over 40 years. Working at 3 other plating shops and then spending 15 years representing a worldwide metal finishing chemical supplier as the owner of Marathon Manufacturing Solutions, Marko checked all those boxes and more. Well, known throughout the industry Marko has a vast amount of technical experience and has problem solved from both a supplier and a finisher viewpoint.

Having been part of an executive leadership program at Harvard School of Business sponsored by the City of Lawrence, MA, Marko was selected to join a group of 30 community, business and government leaders and went through some rigorous training, learning, and collaborating with this exciting group at Harvard. Much of the innovation and leadership happening at TDF right now stems from both Marko’s experience as a finisher, supplier, manager and owner and the incredible experience and connections made through the program with Harvard School of Business.

But it takes a team as every business owner and manufacturer knows, and TDF is very lucky to have Tom Moore, another 40+ year veteran of metal finishing. Spending his career at Hopwood Globe in Malden, eventually owning a portion, Tom joined TDF after Hopwood was cast adrift when the original owners sold the building out from under them.

A 135-year-old company with deep roots and experience, Hopwood was sadly closed in the spring of 2021. It was then that Marko and Tom were able to reunite, they had worked at Hopwood together as kids in the 1980’s, both getting their start there. Tom is the Operations Manager and has brought all his experience and abilities to TDF, overseeing the day- to-day production. Tom has proven himself to the TDF team and to the customers as a capable, caring guy with everyone’s best interests in mind.

Rounding out the staff is Phil and Cynthia, both with years in metal finishing, are in the shipping and customer service departments. On the production floor a Team Leader structure has been developed with Louis and Jose overseeing the plating area and Andres overseeing anodizing and chem film processing on aluminum. The 3 team leaders on the floor are all long time TDF employees, hired and developed by Tom Ferrairo and continuing to grow and thrive at TDF. Their combined experience amounts to decades of hands-on metal finishing experience. A talented and knowledge chemical and wastewater team lead by Slav and Shawn keep the chemistry correct, the water clean and the equipment up to snuff.

Behind the management, customer service and supervisors are a large group of dedicated and committed employees, all with many years of experience at TDF. Employee retention at TDF is excellent and many of the operators and people who handle the parts we process have been here for a long time having seen and done it all. TDF truly feels we have the best, most experienced, and most capable metal finishers in the business.

There is a stake in the ground to implement NADCAP by next spring. A new shop software system is being readied right now that will not only revolutionize our job process travelers but gives customers access to an order report detailing here their orders are in the process flow and what he expected ship date is. There is a new web site in the works that will allow us to share, blog and help our customers. And…. What we do with the several thousand square feet of additional space that Tom Ferrairo had the foresight to secure for TDF remains to be seen?

So, in summary…. Honor the past, treat the present with care and keep an eye to the future.

And use technology, networks, and experience wherever you can.

And treat your employees, customers and suppliers in a way that shows them you’re thinking of them.

And, you should probably know when you’ve said enough!

TDF Metal Finishing, Inc.
7-9 Electronics Ave
Danvers, MA 01923 USA

(978) 223-4292
www.tdfmetalfinishing.com