Custom injection molder Vaupell Inc. intends to move into a 187,000-square-foot plant in Agawam, Mass., by late summer. The plant will replace four smaller molding, machining and toolmaking operations in Massachusetts.
Vic Wisser, Vaupell business development director, said in a Feb. 2 news release that the move will improve efficiency.
Seattle-based Vaupell has other plants, in Seattle; Constantine, Mich.; Sanger, Texas; and Hudson, N.H., and generates annual sales of about $70 million with a focus on aerospace and medical.
The new site will have more clean room molding capacity with additional injection presses.
The current Massachusetts sites - in West Brookfield, Marlborough and two in West Hatfield - operate 53 presses with clamping forces of 28-300 tons.
Those plants formerly were part of SciTech Plastics Group. In April, equity investor H.I.G. Capital LLC of Miami, the owner of Vaupell Industrial Plastics Inc., acquired the assets of seven SciTech operations and combined the businesses to form Vaupell Inc.
Separately, Oxford Performance Materials Inc. picked Vaupell as the exclusive North American injection molder of its polyetherketoneketone implantable materials.
The Jan. 12 agreement between Vaupell and Oxford Performance of Enfield, Conn., involves use PEKK with the highest commercially available glass-transition temperature, Vaupell said. Oxford makes the materials and blends for implantable components and devices.