Modern Plastic Technics Inc. will expand its overmolding capacity for growing sales in telecommunications markets by installing a vertical rotary table injection press in the second quarter.
The West Berlin, N.J., custom molder recently spent about $750,000 to add injection press capacity, partly for telecommunications parts, a relatively new business area, said Robert Piccoli, co-owner of Modern Plastic Technics.
The firm added five Van Dorn and Van Dorn Demag presses with clamping forces of 25-170 tons. The 170-tonner is an extended tie-bar machine to accomodate a variety of mold sizes.
Piccoli said his firm's experience in overmolding elastomers onto rigid engineering resins has helped it capture new telecommunications parts contracts. It now has two insert molding machines doing work for this market. He said existing business with electronics and related companies also is growing. Modern Plastic Technics' sales last year increased about 27 percent to more than $15 million. Piccoli predicted 1997 sales will reach $20 million.
Recent machinery purchases boosted the firm's press count to 32. It also bought a Trans-Tech pad printing machine, giving it five pad printers. A sister firm, Dual Machine Tool Inc., boosted its mold-making capacity recently by adding a Charmilles Roboform computer numerically controlled electrical discharge center.
Piccoli said Modern Plastic Technics also is leasing 15,000 more square feet of space in an adjacent facility, boosting total floor space of the two companies to about 65,000 square feet.
Piccoli and partner Ben Uscinowicz founded Dual Machine Tool in 1969 and branched into custom molding in 1984 by establishing Modern Plastic Technics. They plan to get ISO 9002 certification for the latter company this year.