Taiwanese mold maker Easton Mold & Die Corp. is building a toolmaking and molding plant in Shenzhen, China, to focus on expanding its capacity to handle large parts.
The Taipei-based firm plans to have 200 people and 20 presses in the plant, to complement another factory it has in the Pearl River Delta, in the city of Dongguan, said President Coleman Cheng. The Dongguan plant has 10 injection presses.
The company's customers want it to move from making molds for products like water-meter cases to molding and providing more assembly operations, he said.
As well, the company plans to segregate its existing factories, using Shenzhen to make molds for large parts and Dongguan for smaller molds. The company plans to have presses up to 1,000 tons in Shenzhen, compared with 600 tons in Dongguan, Cheng said.
The firm is investing US$10 million in the Shenzhen plant, and plans to open it in mid-2007. While labor costs in Shenzhen and the rest of the Pearl River Delta are rising 10-20 percent a year, Cheng said it remains a relatively low-cost spot for Easton.