Infiana Group GmbH is spending more than $22 million (20 million euros) to expand in both the United States and Europe, the film company said.
Construction is scheduled to begin next year on new coating facilities at the company's locations in both Malvern, Pa., and Forchheim, Germany.
Work in Pennsylvania will include a new printing and coating system, while work in Germany will involve a new thermal coating system.
“Our U.S. subsidiary will become more flexible in the future and will be able to benefit from the ability to serve a broader range of markets,” said Robert Schumoski, general manager of the Malvern location, in a statement.
Infiana, which calls itself a market leader in the building and construction sector, said the new Malvern system will allow the firm to further diversify production.
“By purchasing the printing and coating machine, we have laid the technological foundation in Malvern to further position ourselves as the leading provider of specialty films in North America in all of our core markets,” Shumoski said in his statement. Aside from building and construction, those markets include personal care, health care, and pressure sensitive and composites, the company said.
Gernot Becker, general manager for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, had this to say about the Forchheim expansion, in a statement.
“This new technology will allow us to offer our customers more specialized products, which are optimally designed for their specific applications,” he said. “In thermal coating, the thickness of the film in relation to the high drying heat, by way of example, is currently a limiting factor. This new facility will allow us to significantly enlarge the process window and produce even thinner coated films in future. This is exactly the solution that the fast-growing market demands.”
Both projects are scheduled to be operating during the first half of 2017.
News of this latest work comes just about a year after Infiana said it was expanding capacity in Malvern with the addition of another extruder.
Infiana is the former Huhtamäki Films, which changed its name following a private equity and management buyout in November 2014, from former parent company Huhtamäk Oyj of Espoo, Finland.
The company sold a production site in Brazil in February to Packing Group, citing difficult economic conditions in that country.
Infiana also operates at production site in Samutsakorn, Thailand.