All the expansions are for existing business, Evco President Dale Evans said. The price tag also includes buying some machines to replace older equipment, he said.
Evans said about $4 million to $5 million of the total is going for a 36,000-square-foot expansion to its factory in Calhoun, Ga. When the addition is completed this fall, Calhoun will total 110,000 square feet.
Evco is adding an Ube injection press with 3,300 tons of clamping force — the largest machine so far in Calhoun. (The company's largest press at any location is a 3,500 ton Engel installed two years ago at the factory in Oshkosh, Wis.)
“We're probably going to need another large machine in there, early next year, as well,” Evans said about the Calhoun factory. “So we're going big in the Southeast. Our largest press we have now is a 2,200-ton down there, and so this will start us in the 3,000-ton class range.”
The new two-platen Ube press is servo-hydraulic, making it about 70 percent more efficient than a standard hydraulic machine, he said.
Going above 3,000 tons will give Evco access to jobs for larger parts in the Southeastern United States “There's a lot of power-sports business in that part of the world,” he said.
That will be Evco's fourth injection press of 3,000 tons and larger. Two are in Wisconsin and one is in Juarez, Mexico.
Evans and his daughter Anna Evans Bartz, the company's marketing director, outlined the investments in an interview at NPE 2015 in Orlando. Evco is based in DeForest, Wis.
