Plastics injection molder Jatco Inc. of Union City, Calif., has invested about $1 million in capital equipment and improvements at its headquarters site over 14 months.
In January, Jatco acquired three used Toyo presses — two with 90 tons and one with 150 tons of clamping force, Eric Appelblom, vice president of sales, said in an interview during the UBM Canon trade shows, held Feb. 8-10 in Anaheim.
Jatco installed the machines in its Class 100,000 clean room, bringing to eight the total number of clean room presses.
The company is outfitting a 1,000-square-foot assembly area on the floor above the clean room for work on medical-related assemblies.
In Union City, Jatco employs 160 and, for all Union City operations, runs 38 presses of 28-1,000 tons.
Meanwhile, in Greenwood, S.C., four injection molding presses of 110-700 tons were being staged for installation in a 38,000-square-foot building that Jatco moved into in mid-2010. The Palmetto, Fla., North American sales and service office of Chinese-British joint venture Tederic Machinery Manufacturer (China) Co. Ltd. of Hangzhou, China, supplied the equipment. Officials expected the machines to begin operating by the end of February to serve Jatco customers in the eastern United States.