Proper Group International has expanded its mold making and related services by acquiring an ownership interest in Cutting Edge Technologies Ltd.
Proper Group noted in a news release that the purchase is part of its long term plan to create a machining and engineering group for global customers. Cutting Edge, based in Windsor, Ontario, will continue supplying tooling and assembly equipment to its customers and will build and service injection molds for Proper Group companies.
Proper Group of Warren, Mich., comprises companies that build molds and do injection molding for automotive and other markets. Many of its molds are for specialty applications such as exterior auto lighting, glass encapsulation, in-mold textile molding, multimaterial molding and molds for chrome-plated plastics.
Cutting Edge has been expanding its machining capabilities, recently adding new three- and five-axis equipment that double its capacity. By late this year it will add a five-axis gun drill and expand its floor space, now about 17,000 square feet. Employment, now about 30, will double over the next year and a half, Proper Group predicts. Cutting Edge founder Sean O'Neil and the firm's management team will continue to run the Windsor operation.
Cutting Edge is the third company under the Proper Group umbrella to provide support to the parent firm's tooling operations, and Proper Group's 10th production plant. Proper Group, established in 1971, employs more than 600 globally at plants in Michigan, South Carolina, Canada and China. The group also is building two more plants but hasn't supplied details of those projects.
A Proper Group company, RocTool Inc., will exhibit at NPE in Booth S15033. Krauss-Maffei Corp. (Booth W903) will be running a RocTool mold at NPE. RocTool's technologies include induction heating of molds.
