Nypro Oregon Inc. is taking delivery of a Charmilles electric discharge machine and a Fadal computer numerically controlled machining center while coping with space limitations in its almost-new facility on 14 acres in Corvallis, Ore.
Nypro Oregon is buying the machines, worth $200,000, to upgrade its toolroom to do maintenance work in-house.
``We've had a mold-repair shop, but it has not been fully functioning,'' Richard Graff, general manager, said in a telephone interview. ``We've farmed out that work to other Nypro locations.''
Nypro Oregon built a mezzanine over a part of its technology center to create space for the toolroom and new equipment.
Charmilles Technologies, the manufacturing technology unit of Swiss-based Georg Fischer group, was to deliver the EDM this month. Giddings & Lewis Inc.'s Fadal Engineering Co. Inc. unit is to deliver the CNC center in November.
When opening the 94,000-square-foot facility in November 1994, Nypro Oregon anticipated employing as many as 100 people and using 25 machines when in full operation. The custom injection molder passed those milestones months ago. The current count is 150 employees and 34 machines with clamping forces of 60-300 tons, Graff said. Overflow work goes to Nypro Chicago Inc. in Gurnee, Ill., and Nypro San Diego Inc. in Chula Vista, Calif.
Six 100-ton Engel presses operate in a second clean room that was created in a former storage area in the basement.
Graff said a full engineering department has been added. The technology center uses three of the presses for testing new projects and the corporate Nypro Inc. staff in Clinton, Mass., is working on an expansion plan that would ``take us up to 50 machines.''
The Oregon operation's tools are made at sister Nypro companies in Gurnee and Clinton.
