Yizumi-HPM opens new headquarters in Ohio

Iberia, Ohio — If you blink while driving, you can miss Iberia, a tiny rural town in Morrow County, Ohio. But officials of Yizumi-HPM Corp. say the machinery maker's new 22,000-square-foot headquarters still makes a bold statement.

Yizumi-HPM bought the building at an auction in late 2015, and has invested $1.8 million so far in what was formerly a fabrication shop. The work included a two-story office area, a high-tower area at the front entrance, racking and extensive remodeling.

"This says, hey, we're here. We have strong commitment to the marketplace," said Bill Duff, general manager of sales and marketing. "We have a beautiful facility. We have engineering. We have service. We have parts. So we have a heck of a lot more than most of the other suppliers of offshore equipment. And that's what we're trying to get across."

The building sits on a nearly 8-acre site, giving Yizumi-HPM room to grow. Yizumi officials wanted to own a headquarters, not just lease, Beary said.

Chinese machinery maker Guangdong Yizumi Precision Machinery Co. Ltd. bought the intellectual property of HPM in 2011 during an auction at the hulking, closed-down factory in Mount Gilead, Ohio. HPM, founded in 1877 to make apple presses, got into injection molding machines, sheet extrusion lines and die-casting machines. The company was one of earliest U.S. manufacturers of injection molding presses. (HPM sheet lines are no longer being produced).

Locally owned until the late 1990s, HPM had gone through a chaotic roller coaster of ownership changes, layoffs, unpaid taxes and a bankruptcy before finally closing its doors in Mount Gilead for good in late 2009.

Yizumi-HPM is leasing the former HPM Remanufacturing building in nearby Marion, Ohio, with 20,000 square feet and a 150-ton crane for moving big machines and parts, where it will rebuild and refurbish machines and handle larger new machines coming from China.

The Iberia building is equipped with a 25-ton crane and a 15-ton crane.

Duff said Yizumi-HPM currently has 22 machines in inventory, housed at the Marion facility.

Yizumi, which is publicly traded on the Shenzhen stock exchange, is one of China's largest makers of injection molding and die-casting machines.

Yizumi-HPM President John Beary said HPM has had stability for the past six years under the ownership of its Chinese parent, which has a strong financial position.

"So for us, it's nice to be able to talk to an owner that understands the business. They're in the business," he said.

Yizumi-HPM officials talked about the company and its new headquarters building in an interview in Iberia Oct. 11. They were busy getting ready for a grand opening and open house Oct. 18-19.

Yizumi-HPM employs 20 full-time, including four engineers. Beary said another six or seven part-time employees are handling service on the thousands of existing legacy HPM presses in the field.

Beary said Yizumi-HPM does some U.S. assembly of die-casting machines. But on injection molding presses, the smaller machines come fully assembled from China.

"The larger machines, we do final assembly here," he said, using pre-assembled components that come from China.

In Iberia, Beary said, Yizumi-HPM will have corporate offices, sales, service and some of the parts business. There is an area for demonstrating machines and doing customer mold trials.

Beary said Yizumi-HPM needs to get closer to its customers.

"We need to really, really, really, really be able to think and understand and know what our customers are trying to do. Aside from, do we have the right daylight? Do we have the tie-bar clearance? Is the screw the right shot size? That's easy stuff," he said. "So, going forward, I think we're going to continue to try to do more than just, 'here's a machine.' We got to get into the detail of the process."

The company has hired Scott Howell as service manager. Howell left HPM in 2009 and worked at three Tier 1 automotive suppliers and a packaging maker. Bill Duff, a veteran plastics machinery salesman, joined early last year.

William Flickinger, who began working at HPM in 1968 and was the longtime president, has an office at the Iberia headquarters. Flickiner is slated to retire in the first quarter of 2018, but Beary said he plays a key role. Most recently, Flickinger designed a big 4,500 die-casting machine and handled the sale to Walker Die Casting Inc. in Lewisburg, Tenn., for casting a 130-pound transmission housing.

Beary said it was believed to be the largest die-casting machine HPM has ever made.

The company had been called HPM North America, but changed its name to Yizumi-HPM earlier this year. After Yizumi bought HPM, the business bought Flickinger's service company, Bivouac Engineering Service.

Beary said there was some confusion from customers about the three names and how it all came together. "So we decided to merge and create one company," he said.

Another reason for adding the name Yizumi to the U.S. company was to highlight the Chinese parent company.

"That's really who we are," Beary said. "We are 100-percent owned by Yizumi. We're their North American subsidiary. We're a little different from other folks that have their ownership group in China or partnership, because our roots run pretty deep when it comes to plastics and processing."

Iberia is less than 10 miles from the old Mount Gilead factory, and not far from Marion, where the headquarters of HPM North American was most recently located.

"It was an opportunity that sort of fell on our doorstep, where we know the Morrow County commissioners," Beary said. "And it wasn't like 'gee, let's move to Tennessee.'"

The commissioners — one of whom was an HPM employee years ago — are coming for the open house.

At the Oct. 18-19 grand opening, Yizumi-HPM is showing eight injection presses, including several new models. All are designed for the North American market, meeting SPI standards for safety, knockout configurations and other functions. All the machines have Keba controllers.

The "N" stands for North America in two of the new presses — the DP-N and A5-N. The two-platen DP-N replaces the HS-II. It comes in clamping forces from 900-3,500 tons. Clamping force is generated by locking nut mechanisms on each tie bar, and four short-strike, high-pressure cylinders.

Other features of the hydraulic, two-platen DP-N include carriage supports and double-deck linear guide rails; ultrasonic displacement sensors on the injection carriages; a detachable mechanism for quick barrel changes; and two injection carriages in a parallel arrangement.

At the open house, visitors will see a 1,650 ton DP-N press, with a 380-ounce injection unit.

Duff said the toggle-clamp A5-N replaces the HST-II, from 450-1,250 tons. A 730-ton press will be on display at the open house. On the clamping unit, features include a highly rigid design, uniform distribution of clamp, front heavy-load sliding supports on the moving platen and an extended ejector guiding-platen design. Injection-unit features include an integrated linear guide rail support, a deep-groove ball bearing at the front of the transmission near the screw, proportional back pressure and a low-friction oil seal inside the injection cylinder.

Duff said Yizumi HPM also will show a standard 65-ton press equipped to run liquid silicone rubber. Another U.S. product launch: A fully-electric press. The company is offering the all-electrics in clamping forces from 60-300 tons.

Yizumi-HPM also is showing a press for molding thin-wall packaging.