Habasit completes Ga. site expansion
SUWANEE, GA. — Conveyor belt manufacturer Habasit America has brought its Suwanee operations under one roof with a multimillion-dollar expansion at its 25-acre site.
The company recently built a 290,000-square-foot addition and moved in its main office and fabric production from a nearby, leased facility. The expansion includes an automatic storage and retrieval system in the modular fabrication area. The company employs 250 at the site.
Habasit built a 50,000-square-foot building in 2000 and was known originally as Habasit Belting LLC, a plastic modular belt assembler. It changed its name in April 2008 to Habasit America.
The company makes conveyor, plastic modular, seamless, power transmission and timing belts.
Habasit mostly does fabricating and assembly in Suwanee. A sister facility in Vittorio Veneto, Italy, supplies plastic modules and sprockets to the Georgia facility. Habasit America is a unit of Habasit Holding AG of Reinach-Basel, Switzerland.
Dow sells two additive lines to HallStar
CHICAGO — HallStar Co. of Chicago has acquired a pair of plastic additive businesses from Dow Chemical Co. for an undisclosed price.
The product lines acquired are Dioplext-brand polymeric plasticizers and Rezilubet-brand polymer additives. The purchases include customer lists and formulations, but no machinery, real estate or other hard assets, a HallStar spokesman said.
Dioplext additives are used in food wraps, self-adhesives, electrical tape and industrial hoses and tubing. Rezilubet additives are used in lubricants for biodegradable lubricant base stocks. The products are natural additions to HallStar's specialty ester technology, HallStar President John Paro said in a May 4 news release.
Gordon Alderley, systems house director for Midland, Mich.-based Dow, said in the news release, “HallStar has years of experience in the development and manufacture of polymeric esters.” There should be no disruptions in supply, officials with both companies said.
HallStar supplies polymer additives and ingredients for personal-care products. The firm employs 200 and posted sales of $135 million in 2008. Dow ranks as one of the world's largest plastics and chemical makers, with 2008 sales of $57.5 billion.
Priamus, PlantStar combine controls
SOUTH BEND, IND. — The makers of two injection molding process-control systems have teamed up to offer both of their products together.
Syscon-PlantStar of South Bend is joining its PlantStar production and process-monitoring system with the cavity-pressure and temperature-control system from Priamus System Technologies LLC of Brunswick, Ohio. The combination will allow molders to incorporate cavity and temperature data into a system providing both historical and real-time information, executives said in an April 6 news release.
The combined technology was first offered to medical molders, but now is expanding to all injection molding applications that require tighter control and better production tracking.
Sabert eyes growth as it fills up plant
SAYREVILLE, N.J. — Sabert Corp.'s newest U.S. molding facility has been open not quite a year, but the thermoformer already is considering the potential for future expansion on the 72-acre Kentucky site.
The $35 million, 250,000-square-foot plant in Hillview, Ky., employs about 100 people thermoforming and extruding disposable platters, bowls and containers for the food-service market.
Hillview joins molding operations at Sabert's headquarters in Sayreville and in California, Belgium and China. The new plant, which opened in June, provides a central location as well as needed capacity, Chief Financial Officer Gary Ziznewski said in a May 8 telephone interview.
Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear took part in the official grand opening May 7 in Hillview. The state's Economic Development Finance Authority provided $2 million to help finance the plant.
Sabert officials said they expect to expand on the large site, adding both capacity and employees, but said that it is too soon to discuss details.