ORLANDO, FLA. — Indian custom injection molder Jyoti Plastic Works Pvt. Ltd. is investing $4.5 million in a new molding factory and two large-tonnage presses, as part of what it said is a strategy to focus more on U.S.-based customers.
The Mumbai-based company said the factory, in the western Indian city of Khadki, will open later this year and include a $1.5 million investment in two presses with clamping forces of more than 1,500 tons.
It will initially focus those big machines on manufacturing large pallets and other containers for global transportation and logistics markets.
Jyoti executives said they're banking on the Indian economy becoming a larger manufacturing base for multinational companies, and anticipate greater demands for such transportation and shipping-related products there.
“That market is in its infancy in India,” said Director Ashish Desai, in a March 26 interview at NPE 2015 in Orlando. “Foreign companies that are looking at India will need material handling solutions.”
“This plant was designed with U.S. export requirements for molding and for machines,” he said.
The company does about 80 percent of its business in either direct exports to the United States, or manufacturing plastic parts for subsidiaries of U.S. companies, he said.
That's a big change from 2009, when only about 10 percent of its business was with U.S. firms, he said: “Our strategy was to target U.S. businesses because we saw long-term potential.”
The company exhibited at its first NPE in 2009, and in 2010 opened a 100,000-square-foot molding facility in Khadki, which it said was designed for the U.S. markets in terms of quality control and process systems, Desai said.
The existing factory, which has about 250 employees, manufactures close-tolerance parts for industries including water treatment, fluid engineering, electronics and telecom.
“These are parts which require a high degree of value-added engineering,” said another Jyoti director, Raju Desai.
The new facility, located about 125 miles from Mumbai, will also be about 100,000 square feet, and may include a tool room capable of supplying molds to global customers, although a final decision on equipping that tool room has yet to made, according to Ashish Desai.
He said Jyoti has about $20 million in annual sales and 600 employees, including business units for molding composite parts, its Polysmart Technologies Pvt. Ltd. product design shop and a 50 percent joint venture with U.S. compounder International Polymer Pvt. Ltd.
Desai said Jyoti is looking at opening a U.S. sales office.
