Thermal Care expands HQ plant in Niles, Ill. NILES, ILL. — Thermal Care Inc., which makes chillers, cooling towers and temperature controllers for plastics processing, has launched an expansion of its headquarters factory in Niles.
Thermal Care said the addition this year will increase its manufacturing and inventory space by 50 percent. The first phase — adding a new four-dock shipping area and warehouse space — was completed in January.
The company will not disclose the size or cost of the expansion, or the total square footage of its plant, according to Amanda Rehrauer, Thermal Care's marketing coordinator.
Thermal Care said the expansion will help it keep up with a significant business increase in the past few years, and allow the company to build and ship machines faster.
Thermal Care is a subsidiary of MFRI Inc.
Michael Day adds an extrusion line
WADSWORTH, OHIO — Michael Day Enterprises Inc., an engineering resins compounder based in Wadsworth, recently installed a new twin-screw extrusion line to be used exclusively for product development.
The line will be used in a 3,000-square-foot lab expansion that the firm completed in early December.
An older development line now will produce specialty nylon compounds for the electrical/electronics market. The move is expected to boost the firm's annual capacity, which currently is more than 40 million pounds, by 1.5 million pounds.
Michael Day, which posted sales of about $35 million in 1999, generates about 65 percent of its sales from nylon compounds.
Milacron products under 4 brand names
Milacron Inc.'s Plastics Technologies Group has unified its global machinery products under four brand names: Ferromatik-Milacron, ExtrusionTek-Milacron, Uniloy-Milacron and D-M-E.
The biggest name change comes to Milacron's injection press business. In the past, the company used the Ferromatik-Milacron name for injection molding machines made at its plant in Malterdingen, Germany; just plain Milacron machines were the ones built at the main plant in Batavia, Ohio. Now all injection presses will carry the Ferromatik-Milacron name.
In another change, each Ferromatik-Milacron injection press will come with a regional suffix identifying the geographic location that sells and services the machine — North America, South America, Europe, Asia-Pacific or India.
Although the name game does not change Milacron's corporate structure, officials say it should simplify the company to customers.
"Our injection molding machinery businesses have functioned substantively and strategically as one for a number of years," said Harold Faig, Plastics Technologies Group vice president. "Now the Ferromatik-Milacron name reflects that."
Milacron officials said there are two exceptions to the injection molding brand name. The Japanese-made, all-electric Roboshot press will be marketed in North and South America under the Milacron-Fanuc name. Milacron will continue to call its vertical-clamp injection presses by the Autojectors name. The company also will retain the Indigo name for its horizontal-clamp machines built in Ahmedabad, India, and sold through Autojectors.
Victrex plc purchases Laporte DFDPM plant
THORNTON, ENGLAND — Victrex plc has secured key raw material supplies through the purchase of a plant from Laporte plc.
Victrex is paying 17.6 million ($28.6 million) for Laporte's 4,4'-difluorodiphenylmethane (DFDPM) plant in Rotherham, England. Laporte and Victrex also signed a joint venture deal, creating a firm that will convert DFDPM into a feedstock for Victrex's polyaryletherketone resin. Victrex and Laporte own equal shares of the new joint venture.
Victrex is a publicly held company based in Thornton.
Laporte is headquartered in London.
DSM takes ownership of China compounder
HEERLEN, NETHERLANDS — DSM Engineering Plastics has strengthened its position in China by taking over 100 percent ownership of a compounding plant in Jianying, near Shanghai.
The company, a division of DSM NV of Heerlen, signed a contract to acquire control from Jiangsu Jiangyin Mould Plastic Group Co., according to DSM.
The Jianying facility, with capacity of 34 million pounds per year, produces engineering plastic compounds based on resins including nylon, polyesters such as PET and polybutylene terephthalate, and polypropylene.
The move is part of DSM's strategy of expanding worldwide, spreading its activities in particular in Asia and the Americas.
"This acquisition is an important strategic step to follow and support global customers who are starting up or already have manufacturing operations in China," DSM said in a news release.