MonoSol LLC has opened a new $95 million plant in Portage, Ind., boosting the company's manufacturing capacity by 15 percent.
“Our business is growing. There are huge opportunities for unit-dose laundry and automatic dishwasher detergents in developed and emerging markets around the world,” P. Scott Bening, MonoSol president and CEO, in a statement.
“By partnering with customers to drive innovation, we help develop new consumer and industrial applications while improving established products,” he continued.
MonoSol now has eight locations on three continents. At the new site, called the DuneLand Facility, a manufacturing line will begin this year and the line should reach full capacity next year.
Another manufacturing line is slated to be added by 2020.
The company expects to hire more than 150 people to run those around-the-clock lines.
The Merrillville, Ind.-based based company is a division of Japan-based Kuraray Co. Ltd.
Before deciding on Indiana, the company looked around the world to determine where to put the new facility, which is near an existing MonoSol manufacturing site.
“It became evident that none could match Northwest Indiana given our confidence in the workforce, the abundant natural resources, our established relationships with service providers and the support we received from the State of Indiana and the City of Portage,” Bening said in his statement. “Our DuneLand Facility taps into our deep roots in Northwest Indiana to expand the MonoSol organization.”