Duer High Performance Composites, a maker of composite components for defense, marine, industrial and other markets, recently established a new production facility in Beaufort County, S.C.
The company began operations at the new 50,000 square foot facility three weeks ago, after closing down its previous plant in Jasper County, S.C.
“We had been in Jasper County, in a much smaller facility,” said President Chris Duer. “And so we've actually closed that and moved into Beaufort County, into 25,000 square feet, and we'll grow into the 50,000 square feet by next summer as well, so it's sort of a staged growth basically.”
The move to Beaufort came after the company received a $1 million investment, as well as a $50,000 grant from the Coordinating Council for Economic Development for building improvements.
The funding will create approximately 47 jobs at the new facility, and help pay for improvements to the building, new machinery, fabric cutters, CNC routers, a new clean room, and an expansion to the oven, Duer said.
“Our oven will be expanded to 60 feet long, 10 feet tall, 18 feet wide, and the clean room will be the same length but much taller and much wider,” he said. “A lot of that is part of the million dollar investment.”
Duer manufactures composite components utilizing resin infusion, out of autoclave prepreg and resin film infusion.
