MedPlast Inc. plans to build its fourth plant in China, which also will be its 11th globally.
Medplast announced Aug. 20 that it will open a new 20,000-square-foot health care products plant in Suzhou in the fourth quarter of 2015.
“We're expanding for an existing customer, as they expand we expand with them,” stated MedPlast vice president of marketing Barbara Glenn, in a phone interview.
The company has ordered 12 Chen Hsong all-electric injection presses with clamping forces from 50 to 200 tons for installation in an existing facility that MedPlast owns but has not been using. The firm also will install custom-designed blow molding machines relocated from the undisclosed customer, according to Glenn.
Workers in the new unit will mold, assemble and package medical goods that Glenn would not identify due to confidentiality agreements.
MedPlast's other three China facilities include one in Suzhou that molds and assembles health care products. That 115,000-square-foot plant contains 22 all-electric injection presses up to 610 tons and three Class 100,000 clean rooms. Other China operations are a medical mold manufacturing plant, and a custom non-medical molding operation which is part of its UPG custom-molding business based in Houston, which also runs a plant in Wales.
Glenn estimated MedPlast, based in Tempe, Ariz., will chalk up about $300 million in global sales this year. Its other manufacturing locations are in Chicopee, Mass.; Elkhorn, Wis.; Fremont, Calif.; Monticello, Iowa; Tijuana, Mexico; West Berlin, N.J.; Westfield, Pa., and Bacup, England.
MedPlast's in-house capabilities include mold design and building, silicone resin extrusion, blow/fill/seal systems and compression molding of ultrahigh molecular weight polyethylene into sheet for further machining into healthcare products.
Baird Capital Partners is majority owner of MedPlast.