New Delhi — Canada's Silcotech North America Inc. is expanding in both the United States and India, putting an additional $2.5 million into a recently opened facility in South Carolina as it also invests a smaller amount in its existing joint venture in India.
Executives with the company spoke about the Indian venture, Silcotech Bonny Products (India) Pvt. Ltd., at a recent interview at a trade show in New Delhi, and said the factory there is being expanded to meet growing demand in both India and nearby countries.
The joint venture between Silcotech North America and the Noida, India-based Bonny Products Pvt. Ltd. started in 2009, and plans to spend $600,000 on the expansion, including adding more injection molding machines, executives said.
“We would like to triple production for products catering to the expanding segments of automobile and medical and extend our reach in other sectors,” said Silcotech North America Vice President Isolde Boettger. She spoke at Silcotech's booth at the Auto Expo 2016 show in New Delhi in early February.
She said the company is adding capacity for new end markets in India, including packaging and electronics, as well as expand into nearby countries.
“The idea is to expand our footprints in the Indian and Asian markets like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Singapore and the Middle East,” she said.
The Indian joint venture, which operates out of a facility in Noida, has registered double digit growth in the last two years, and has been working to promote silicone-based products in the region, executives said.
“We have been educating the market from last five years and now our products have started finding greater acceptability in various sectors,” said Gaurav Aneja, director of Silcotech Bonny. “The expansion is keeping in line with meeting growing demand.”
The joint venture provides specialized process methods like cold runner process molding, two and multi shot molding, silicone over silicone or thermoplastics, and insert molding.
Silcotech has also developed the capability to mold nine different materials in a single mold, with applications in making mobile phone cases, and it plans to introduce the technology in the Indian venture.
The Noida operation began as a small investment of about $250,000 and one Arburg injection molding machine, the companies told Plastics News in 2009.
The Bolton, Ontario-based Silcotech North America has expertise in specialized liquid silicone injection molding for medical, automotive, consumer electronics and other industries.
Its Indian partner Bonny started making feeding bottles and nipples under the Bonne brand in 1964.
The India expansion comes after the company in November said it was investing an additional $2.5 million in its manufacturing facility in South Carolina.
The announcement, which came from South Carolina state economic development officials, said the investment would be on top of the initial $3.5 million investment in the York, S.C., factory.
South Carolina state officials first announced that York investment in 2013 and said the factory opened in January 2015. The company currently employs 42 people there.
