By adding color concentrates to its product offerings, Royalite Division has taken the next logical step in becoming a full-service supplier, according to marketing director Bowie Grant. Just two years ago, the Misha-waka, Ind.-based firm branched into selling customized injection molding compounds, including precolored resins. That move played on compounding capabilities Royalite had developed through its 50-year-old sheet extrusion operations, Grant said in a recent telephone interview.
``We are very experienced and knowledgeable in materials and
compounding with all kinds of equipment and in color, but we have been servicing ourselves,'' said John Zappala, Royalite vice president and general manager.
The thermoplastics unit of Uniroyal Technology Corp. contributed close to $100 million of the parent's $230 million in sales last year, he said.
Zappala said Royalite customers were requesting color concentrates, so the company installed a Farrell continuous mixer, part of a $1.5 million expansion at its Warsaw, Ind., plant. It also hired eight workers, whose training was funded by the state of Indiana.
By September 1997, the company also plans to have a twin-screw extruder at Warsaw; currently that work is subcontracted.
Other equipment at the plant includes a single-screw compounding extruder for color and a Banbury batch-type mixer, said Mike Nathan, product director for injection resins and color concentrates.