DÜSSELDORF, GERMANY (Nov. 6, 5:15 p.m. EST) — Multifaceted tooling company Compact Mould Ltd. is continuing to explore opportunities in Mexico after opening its second plant in that country.
Compact, based in Woodbridge, Ontario, opened a blow mold manufacturing and repair facility in Queretaro, Mexico, in September, Compact President Miguel Petrucci said Oct. 27 at K 2001 in Dusseldorf.
The 7,000-square-foot plant initially will hire 15 people by year end but has space to grow much larger as business grows in that developing region, he said.
Compact plans to spur development there by working with an affiliated company, blow molding machine producer Heins PCM Machinery Ltd. of Brampton, Ontario. The companies, which have different owners, frequently team up on customer projects, Petrucci said. Compact also supplies blow molds in turnkey packages with Heins' machines.
Heins also plans to open its own facility in Queretaro early next year in the same office park as the Compact plant, said Heins President Gaston Petrucci. The younger Petrucci is the son of the Compact Mold president, and his company shared booth space with Compact at the K show.
The Heins facility, still under assessment, will offer 5,000-8,000 square feet of space and will include a showroom and service facility for repair and refurbishment, Gaston Petrucci said. The plant will employ five to 10, he said. The company makes a variety of dual- and single-station blow molding machines, extrusion heads and other equipment.
Heins had sold equipment in Mexico, some to other North American customers, but never had a facility there before, Gaston Petrucci said.
“It was not as convenient to ship equipment back and forth between Canada and Mexico,” he said. “This gives us a better customer location and a place to showcase our machines.”
Compact's work with Heins is part of the mold maker's partnering approach to the market. Compact also has a joint venture with R.J. Abramo Associates Inc., a maker of injection blow molds based in Holliston, Mass.
The toolmaker has been in Mexico for more than seven years, after opening a plant in Tlalnepantla, near Mexico City. Both the Tlalnepantla and Queretaro facilities operate under the company name Autonoma de Soplo SA de CV.
Compact plans to invest more than $500,000 initially in the leased facility, primarily for a computer numerically controlled machining center and supporting equipment.
Compact produces extrusion and stretch blow molds, many of them for PET bottles and industrial applications, and has U.S. facilities in Chesapeake, Va., and Erlanger, Ky. Another plant in Brampton makes injection and injection stretch blow molds. The company is owned by Miguel and Albino Petrucci.
The Mexican market still is small, accounting for less than 10 percent of Compact's sales, Miguel Petrucci said. The company normally records about US$10 million to US$15 million in sales each year and expects a slight increase this year, he said.
While many molders and original equipment manufacturers have moved operations to Mexico, only a handful of North American toolmakers have followed them to that country. The number of skilled mold shops in Mexico still is small, Miguel Petrucci said. But it is will not stay that way, he said.
“Tooling sales in Mexico might still be under 10 percent for us,” Miguel Petrucci said. “But it's a growing 10 percent. In many cases, Mexico is growing faster than some other regions of the world.”
