Düsseldorf, Germany — South Korean injection press maker Dongshin Hydraulics Co. Ltd. is getting ready to move into a new $30 million factory that will triple its production capacity.
Philip Kim, CEO of the Busan, South Korea-based firm, said the new facility will open in mid-November and will triple the company's capacity, raising it to about 1,500 injection molding machines a year.
He said the investment is necessary to help Dongshin upgrade and better separate itself from China's large injection press industry.
“If I try to do nothing, I will be killed by the Chinese manufacturers,” said Kim during an interview at K 2016 in Düsseldorf. “We have great performance, but we still have to face China.”
The company also ran into a serious shipping problem getting ready for K 2016 and was without any machinery in its booth.
Kim said the 330-ton injection press in its GB series that it planned to exhibit was caught in the financial problems of large South Korean shipping company Hanjin Shipping Co.
The machine was initially sent from Busan to Shanghai, where it languished before it was returned to South Korea.
“Right after we shipped it, Hanjin went bankrupt,” he said. “It was a pain in the ass.”
The machine would have been doing in-mold labeling of an eight-cavity polypropylene food container.
He said Dongshin is getting ready to return to international markets in a bigger way next year, after cutting back when Kim became CEO in 2010 to upgrade its staff and manufacturing and work on brand building.
“Korean manufacturers in our plastics field don't have brand power compared to the Japanese and European companies,” Kim said.
Still, he said Dongshin was turning down orders because of lack of manufacturing capacity.
“We lost a lot of chances because we couldn't deliver the machine on time,” he said. “That is demand we couldn't meet.”
The company has about 170 employees now, but that will grow to 300 when the new factory is in full swing, he said.