Echo Engineering and Production Supplies Inc. has purchased Ammex Plastics LLC, an injection molder in Monroe, Mich.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Echo officials said Ammex Plastics will operate under the company's umbrella as Echo Engineering and Production Supplies Inc. doing business as Ammex Plastics.
Echo CEO Kingdon Offenbacker said in a Nov. 3 phone interview that no changes to leadership or management will be made at either company.
Ammex primarily serves the automotive industry and makes fluid routing, fastening, interior and suspension system components, including clips, mounts, fittings, isolators, bumpers and quick connects.
The company's facility in Monroe — about 40 minutes from downtown Detroit — houses 17 injection molding machines, with three additional presses being installed next month due to increased production.
By the end of 2018, Echo plans to add five more injection molding machines to the Monroe facility, bringing the total to 25. Ammex has 47 full-time employees.
"Ammex's products were fairly narrow in scope, so now with our other technologies, [our customers] will be able to buy more products," Offenbacker said.
Echo is headquartered in Indianapolis and supplies rubber and plastic components — such as gaskets, O-rings, grommets, clips and charge port caps — used in the automotive, heavy equipment and agriculture industries. The company has more than 100 employees.
"A requirement for us in buying a company was that they, one, were making parts that we design, but second, that the products being made are of very high quality," Offenbacker said, adding that Ammex has maintained a quality defect rating of under 0.5 parts per million.
The acquisition will allow Echo to further expand its product offerings and increase its market share within the automotive plastics industry.
"Ammex was 100 percent auto-related," Offenbacker said. "We, overall, are about 40-50 percent auto-related, so it's really just increasing our focus in what we call the mobility space."