Vacuum thermoformer Fabri-Form Co. will add between three and five rotary vacuum forming machines and double its 28,000 square feet of operational space at its Pekin, Ind., plant. The addition will give the Pekin facility manufacturing capabilities equal to Fabri-Form's two other plants, according to a company spokesman.
Byesville, Ohio-based, family-owned Fabri-Form has expanded three times at the Pekin facility since that plant's acquisition in 1954. The company makes tote trays for school systems nationwide, as well as bus and airplane passenger seat backs at Pekin.
Employment at the Pekin plant is expected to exceed 40 when the expansion is complete.
The addition of the new machines from the Brown Machine Division of John Brown Plastics Machinery of Beaverton, Mich., means the Pekin plant will now also produce the firm's specialty, high-molecular-weight high density polyethylene transportation packaging, including custom-designed shipping pallets.
Fabri-Form's other plants, a 5-year-old, 50,000-square-foot plant in Bluffton, Ind., and the 75,000-square-foot headquarters operations in Byesville, already have this capability, said James Chugg, a Fabri-Form spokesman.
The new machines will be an addition to the single-station rotary vacuum former now in operation at Pekin, Chugg said. The new units will have twin- and single-sheet forming capability and will work with stock with thicknesses up to 0.4 inches.
Chugg said three to five new Brown machines will be placed in the Pekin plant, to complement the 10 similar ones at Bluffton and six in Byesville. The company declined to give cost figures for the Pekin expansion.