Custom molder Falcon Plastics Inc. has invested more than $5 million in establishing a new Brookings, S.D., manufacturing plant.
New equipment includes a 1,000-ton Van Dorn injection press, a 750-ton Toshiba and 5- and 15-ton overhead cranes. Falcon plans to have a total of 37 presses at the plant, which currently operates 23. Most of the presses were relocated from Falcon's previous Brookings site.
Falcon also moved a 950-ton Toshiba and an 825-ton Demag there from its Madison, S.D., plant.
The company spent more than $3 million for 14 acres and to build the 60,000-square-foot production facility. Equipment costs were about $2 million. The firm received a $348,000 loan from the South Dakota Revolving Economic Development and Initiative Fund for the project.
Falcon plans to segregate nine of the presses, from 110-250 tons, in a 3,500-square-foot clean environment that it may use for medical molding.
Falcon employs 250, including 100 at the new site. It has a tooling operation, called Premier Source, at its other Brookings site, where it also is based; and molding plants in Madison and Lexington, Tenn. The company recently sold a 20,000-square-foot Brookings warehouse.
Falcon recorded sales of $30 million for the fiscal year ended April 30. It operates 80 injection presses of 35-1,000 tons, in all, and two blow molding machines.
The firm supplies Toshiba Corp.'s America consumer products unit, scoreboard and electronic display manufacturer Daktronics Inc. and 3M Corp.'s medical-surgical business.
The founders' sons, Jay and Guy Bender, run the family business with Shaun Riedesel.