Custom injection molder First Plastics Corp is renovating a recently acquired, 70,000-square-foot facility in Leominster, Mass., to handle its warehousing, distribution and packaging functions.
The acquisition also will free up more production space at the company's 60,000-square-foot headquarters plant in Leominster, where it has added three Husky Hylectric presses since January.
First Plastics bought its new site from Elastomer Solutions Inc. in mid-July, First Plastics President Ed Mazzaferro said in an Aug. 17 telephone interview.
``We started moving product there the first week of August. Our assembly operations will use about 25,000 square feet and the rest will be for warehousing,'' he said.
Mazzaferro said the growing company had spread out operations among three or four leased buildings in the past, but is consolidating those to improve efficiency.
The new building is within a mile of First Plastics' headquarters plant.
This year, First Plastics upgraded a couple of machines and boosted its injection press total to 20. The newest machines are 225-, 550- and 715-ton Husky presses. The last one started operating in June.
``Over the years we've gone to larger products and focused on automation - not to cut labor but to increase productivity and keep us competitive,'' Mazzaferro said.
The new machines lets the firm do more high-speed thin-wall manufacturing, he added.
First Plastics employs about 80 and provides products for many industries, such as medical, sports, infant, housewares, consumer goods, recreation, construction, electronics and lawn and garden.
Mazzaferro said that business is improving. The family-owned firm does not release sales figures.
First Plastics was started by Aldo Mazzaferro, Ed's father, as Art Plastics Co. in 1953. In 1988, it changed its focus to custom molding and, soon afterward, changed its name.