Owners of Tenacore Holdings Inc. have acquired Newport Plastics LLC assets, added Hank Schoone as sales director, and upgraded molding and machining capabilities.
The companies share a 15,300-square-foot facility in a Santa Ana, Calif., enterprise zone, and employ 100, including three toolmakers. They operate seven Toshiba injection molding machines and one Niigata, with clamping forces from 60-190 tons, and a 30-ton Illinois Precision vertical rotary press.
Together, they target 2008 sales of $9 million: about $7.5 million for Tenacore, up from $4.8 million last year, and $1.5 million for Newport, up from $700,000 last year.
Business partners Peter Bonin III and Brand Caso acquired Newport in a cash transaction April 3. The men run the companies, Bonin as Tenacore president and Caso as Newport president.
Industry veteran Schoone had worked for Newport Plastics for 20 years and retired, but the new owners coaxed him back to work and outlined some hefty sales goals.
Newport custom injection molds specialty cookware, toys, office supply, medical and automotive products. Its capabilities include molding, pad printing, silk screening, sonic welding, computer numerically controlled machining and toolmaking.
Bonin and Caso formed Tenacore in 2000 for hospital and clinic repair, and distribution of mostly proprietary medical products, such as finger clips, fetal transducers, electrocardiogram cables, and wall-suction regulators and flow meters. Repair depot operations account for 60 percent of Tenacore sales; proprietary products the rest.
Newport has occupied the Santa Ana building since late 2000. Tenacore began sharing space there in 2003, moving from nearby Laguna Hills, Bonin said.
``In 2003, we recognized the importance of controlling quality, stock levels and delivery schedules'' and gradually began in-house plastics processing, Bonin said. Tenacore holds ISO 13485:2003 certification for medical manufacturing.
A 180-ton Toshiba all-electric with an integrated robot, added in 2007, ``eliminated the machine operator for 80 percent of our jobs,'' said quality manager Pedro Nieto. ``We intend on purchasing a 240-ton Toshiba all-electric in the next three to six months.''
In June, Tenacore added a CNC seven-axis screw machine to keep $125,000 of outsourced parts in-house, Bonin said.
He said the firm manufactures about 85 percent of its components in-house.