Trelleborg, Emerson & Cuming Inc. has opened a new corporate headquarters that includes manufacturing space and a 5,000-square-foot research and development area.
The company gutted and retrofitted an 81,000-square-foot building in Mansfield during an eight-month period to fashion its new home.
``It's just fantastic. We're coming from an older, mill-type building and moving to a state-of-the-art facility,'' said Steven Barner, interim president and chief financial officer, in a telephone interview.
Trelleborg moved from an old, 150,000-square-foot building in Canton, Mass., and is finding the new setup much more efficient, he added. The new facility opened in March.
The company produces materials widely used in the fabrication of composite parts, adhesives, signature management systems and tooling for aerospace, defense, marine and industrial applications.
Among its products are syntactic foams, extrusions, glass microspheres, macrospheres, coated glass and ceramic microballoons.
Barner said Trelleborg always has done R&D, but with the recent addition of syntactic foam expert Gary Gladysz, it is offering much more.
Specific goals include creation of advanced processes for the proprietary coating of spheres, production of binary combinations on large and small balloons, and the use of reinforcing material to alter mechanical, acoustical and thermal properties of the syntactic foams.
Trelleborg also plans to move its seven-employee glass microsphere plant from Randolph into the new facility at a later date. Overall, the firm employs 40.
The company formerly was known as Emerson & Cuming Inc., a name that dates back to 1948. Trelleborg Industries acquired the firm in January 2006.
Trelleborg Industries is the U.S. arm of Trelleborg AB, a publicly held company in Stockholm, Sweden, with 40 technical centers and 100 plants in 40 countries. Its many products include management systems for submarines, anti-vibration mountings for marine engines and airframe, landing gear and flight control seals for commercial and military aircraft.