Rockview
Wood
Products and Furniture, Chairs, Engraving, Signs
The
factories at SCI-Rockview manufacture high-quality custom wood furniture and
upholstered seating for office, hospital dayroom, educational and library
environments. SCI-Rockview also
refinishes and reupholsters older wood and upholstered furniture and engraves
wood routed signs, plastic name plates, plastic signs and award plaques.
PCI also
builds pavilions, sheds, camping cottages, picnic tables and outdoor benches
for all state agencies including PennDOT and DCNR, non-profit groups, and any
organization receiving state funds.
The wood
furniture factory is able to meet nearly every customer specification from
design through fit and finish.
Civilian
Staff and inmate assignments are distributed within the six areas that make up
the Furniture Manufacturing facility.
Administration
and CAD Design: Customer
orders are sent to the shop by CI Central Office. The staff and inmates at Rockview then cut
production orders, track production costs, order materials, keep inventories
and process goods receipts and invoices for those orders. Inmates trained to use the AutoCAD software program
create the design work for custom products to provide blue prints and cut
sheets so costs can be analyzed and quotes developed for the customers. These inmates possess highly specialized
skills that are valuable to employers upon release.
Wood Furniture: This factory makes high-quality
furniture designed by Pennsylvania Correctional Industries for business,
hospital and educational markets.
SCI-Rockview also designs and builds custom made furniture based on
customer specifications using solid wood, furniture grade plywood, plastic
laminate and melamine. Inmates are
trained on modern wood working equipment including CNC router equipment which
requires current AutoCAD and other computer based programming knowledge.
An example
of our custom furniture work is showcased at the DCNR Elk Country Viewing
Center in Elk County and Bald Eagle State Park’s Nature Inn Bed and Breakfast.
Chairs: Rockview’s chair factory produces
chairs made of wood, plastic and metal for customers requesting office seating,
student chairs, overstuffed lounge chairs, love seats, sofas and sleeper
sofas. Inmates at Rockview manufacture
chairs start to finish by turning raw lumber into finished product, cutting and
sewing fabrics, Naugahyde or leather, cutting foam and then assembling the
materials into a fine quality product.
Wood
Signs: The engraved
wood signs made at Rockview are carved on CNC routers which require CAD and CNC
design to be done on some of the most modern and complicated equipment
available. These signs can be seen in
townships and municipalities throughout the Commonwealth. Inmates produce complex designs and then
manufacture, hand paint, seal and ship these custom signs to the customer. The sign shop also produces custom engraved
Recognition Award plaques.
Reupholster
and Refinishing: This
operation makes older furniture look new for a fraction of the cost. This is a highly specialized skill that is
rare even in private industry and is in high demand. The end result saves our customers money
while teaching our inmate workers a valuable post-release skill set.
Our shop has
refinished book cases for Canonsburg Public Library, where inmate workers
stripped off the old finish, repaired any damaged areas, sanded, re-stained and
sealed with a new top coat. Our chair
factory also reupholstered 100 chairs obtain from DGS Surplus. The inmate workers disassembled the chairs,
made new patterns to cut new fabric, cut and replaced foam, sewed the new
fabric and reassembled the parts, making the old chairs new again for a
fraction of the cost of new seating.
Wood
Products: This cost
center produces sheds, pole barns, recreation seating and camping cottages for
PennDOT, DCNR, many municipalities and fire departments around the state. Picnic tables and park benches are
manufactured from red oak harvested from Pennsylvania forests. Our recreation product line includes picnic
tables that meet ADA standards, park benches and octagonal tables with bench
seating.
Inmates
learn building trades and are taught how to work in a furniture manufacturing
setting while producing these products.
There are
currently 62 inmates employed in the Furniture Manufacturing facility at
SCI-Rockview.