GW Silicones continues to invest in its operations, doubling the size of its clean room space, adding machinery and providing services from design to tooling to manufacturing.
“In late summer we basically doubled the size of our Class 8 clean room space for silicone molding,” noted Mark Hammond, general manager of Royalton, Vt.-based GW Silicones, in a telephone interview.
Hammond said that it was a continuation of a program started in 2015 to enlarge the Royalton campus of its parent GW Plastics Inc. It also includes mold making, a tech center, plastics operations and warehouse space.
He did not disclose the number of molding machines but noted that “we received multiple machines this year and await more to arrive.
“We saw an uptick in overmolding projects with silicone on plastics,” he said, noting that GW Silicones has increased its capacity.
“The customers are more price conscious than they were 10 years ago. In the past we might just make a silicone component and source where we had to,” he said.
Hammond said now customers are looking at the different ways of manufacturing and are demanding high quality tooling and more automation in the process.
“Our strategy is to take the higher road as far as quality and tooling and that's always been the focus,” he said.
The company does focus on medical, but has also has taken on more automotive.
The GW Silicones unit opened in Royalton in 2008. Its parent, GW Plastics, based in Bethel, Vt., earned Plastics News' 2009 Processor of the Year Award in 2009 and PN's Sustained Excellence Award winner in 2015.
GW Plastics ranked 68th in the Plastics News' 2016 ranking of North American injection molders with sales of $130.3 million.
