Global Tool & Engineering Inc., which recently doubled the size of one of its plants, started as a product development management firm in 1993, opened a manufacturing operation in October 1995 and now employs 60 at facilities in Carrollton, Texas, and St. Paul, Minn.
In a project that started in March 1996, Global developed prototype tooling for a sophisticated micro device that Motorola Inc.'s Two-Way Paging Division in Fort Worth, Texas, plans to sell beginning in April in the upper-end market of the pager industry.
``We're working on production tooling now,'' said Brad Keating, Global vice president of sales and marketing. The two-way Motorola device sends e-mail and fax messages and features an infrared port.
Global has design capabilities, two Selective Laser Sintering prototyping machines, quick-turnaround tooling equipment and low-volume production on five Toyo injection molding machines with clamping forces of 55-300 tons. The firm recorded 1996 sales of $5.3 million, and Keating forecasts $8 million this year.
In February 1996, Global acquired RKO Tooling in St. Paul, and in December, Global doubled the size of its Carrollton facility to 24,000 square feet.