Oregon's Elite Plastics adding capacity for growing markets

Beaverton, Ore. — Elite Plastics is adding injection molding presses and advanced laboratory equipment.

“We are expanding a lot for us” and adding technologies, Dan Thurmond, president, said in a phone conversation.

Elite Plastics in Beaverton is a division of Seattle-based GM Nameplate Inc.

“We are getting to a point where GM Nameplate is becoming our biggest customer” with certain molded or overmolded parts going to another GM division for assembly, Thurmond said.

Elite Plastics capabilities include an automated six-axis paint line, an automated assembly line, computer-numerical-control pad printing, hot stamping, screen printing, three-dimension laser scanning and plastics machining.

Beginning in November, Elite took delivery of five Arburg single-shot all-electric presses: two of 110 tons and one each of 44, 66 and 165 tons. Each molding machine came with a full robotic system and auxiliary dryer and die heater systems, Elite Plastics engineering manager Bruce Wold said during a plant interview and tour.

Currently, Elite operates 26 presses of 44-600 tons including 14 Arburgs, nine Milacrons, two Nisseis and one vertical JSW.

In addition, Elite has a pending order for a two-shot 440-ton Arburg hydraulic that is expected to be operational in June.

Elite operates six robots on the production floor for part removal and secondary operations and two other robots for three-axis pick-and-place assembly tasks.

Elite's end markets include medical, aerospace, defense, automotive, industrial and electronics.

Medical is the “bread and butter” representing about 70 percent of sales, Wold said. Here are examples:

• Infusion pumps for a well-known medical supplier. Heat staking is used. Three cameras optically verify the correct positioning of threaded screw inserts.

• A portable field unit for first responders to check a person's vital statistics or signs.

• A large dialysis machine for in-home use. The Milacron 600-ton press molds the housing.

• A threaded-through-the-groin trans-catheter mitral repair therapy enabling the application of a clip on a heart valve.

• An in-mold decorated PC user interface control panel for a breast pump. A 220-ton Arburg molds the panel two up, and a Haas computer-numerical-control mill does the trimming.

Elite began marketing to the aerospace industry in 2012 with that niche accounting for 3 percent of sales in 2013. Parent firm GM Nameplate started supplying aviation-giant Boeing Co. in 1954.

“Our quality systems and strict protocols for validation and qualification are framed around medical requirements and have made the adoption of aerospace growth fit nicely for us,” Wold said.

Elite was certified under AS 9100C standard for the aerospace industry in December 2015, and now aerospace represents about 10 percent of sales.

“We won a nice program using 12 molds for cosmetic seatback components for a 737 supplier,” Wold said.

Other aircraft work from OEM suppliers includes cosmetic row markers for use in the Boeing 787 and use of Radel-brand polyphenylsulfone for molding high-end toilet seats for the Airbus 350.

Elite makes multiple automotive components for Tier 1 and 2 suppliers.

The largest volume is for a shift indicator with an acrylic panel.

A Fanuc America Corp. model P-250i robotically paints the product, which also undergoes laser etching. A three-axis Denso Corp. robot inserts a PC-film applique. The end assembler is a Japanese auto maker.

For use in April, Elite is installing a unit from Rofin-Sinar Laser GmbH of Bergkirchen, Germany, for the online laser etching of polymers as an alternative to pad printing. Currently, Elite operates two other laser systems.

In January, Elite's quality engineering laboratory began operating an $85,000 seven-axis Faro Edge scanner with a nine-foot spherical working volume for reverse engineering. The scanner sits on a $3,700 bench. The manufacturer, Faro Technologies UK Ltd., is based in Rugby, England.

For measuring, the lab uses a new laser scanner from ViewSonic Corp. of Taipei, Taiwan.

Regarding Elite's ISO 13485 initiative underway since 2014, “we completed our audit in early March and have been recommended for certification,” Wold said. “We should have the cert in a couple months.”

The ISO 13485 standard applies to quality management systems for medical devices.

Thurmond and Egon Steinborn founded Danegon Plastics in Hillsboro, Ore., in 1985 in a 1,500-square-foot space, and built a business that included GM Nameplate as a customer.

GM Nameplate was producing logos and nameplates from sheet plastic or sheet metal, Thurmond recalled. “Then GM's big customers for plastics, like HP, wanted a less expensive product. GM came to us. A year later, they wanted to buy us.”

The transaction occurred in 1992. GM renamed the business as the Elite Plastics division and moved it to a larger facility in Beaverton.

Initially, the division was supplying 10 percent of its molded product internally to other GM Nameplate divisions. Today. Elite Plastics supplies about 50 percent of its value-added plastic molding to other GM divisions for further electronic value-added assemblies and produces the remainder in custom work for other customers.

The 1992 change of ownership “opened a tremendous number of doors for us” at major publicly traded corporations, Thurmond said.

“It pushed us to where we had 10 molding machines. We came to customers with new ideas” such as in-mold decorating of plastics or metals.

“We could bring them things in which they are interested,” he noted. “Sometimes, our customer base does not know our new thoughts.”

Currently in Beaverton, Elite occupies 45,000 square feet including 15,000 square feet that Elite might convert to manufacturing space. Now, that area is devoted to material storage and warehousing.

At a separate location in 2014, Elite began leasing and will continue to use another 15,000 square feet for warehouse purposes.

Demonstrating resourcefulness, Elite buys components and, in-house, builds a significant amount of its automation capabilities including customized devices for secondary milling functions.

Elite Plastics had 2016 sales of $21.9 million and projects a 10 percent increase during 2017.

Elite has 128 full time employees and another 22 temporary workers. “We use more temps as the jobs require,” Wold said. He joined Elite Plastics in 2003 and has held positions as program manager, plant manager and, since 2009, engineering manager.

To accommodate growth, Elite is recruiting talent in program management, quality engineering, production management and business development.

Vertically integrated GM Nameplate with its divisions is gravitating away from the original nameplate and label lines and toward more work as an electronics contract manufacturer, Wold said.

In addition to Elite Plastics, other GM Nameplate divisions are in Seattle; San Jose, Calif.; Monroe, N.C.; Singapore; and Dongguan, China.

Work includes the liquid optical bonding process and production of cap/sense/touch capacitors for activating switches.

Elite in Beaverton supplies some of the housings and components.

On other work, Elite molds parts and both clear- and spatter-coat paints 7-inch and 10-inch versions of PC/ABS touch screens for a major agricultural equipment maker. GM in a Seattle facility completes and ships each unit to the OEM.