MedPlast Inc. plans to close its West Berlin, N.J., facility by the end of June and consolidate some operations and personnel into its South Plainfield, N.J., site, which is about 70 miles away.
“This is a strategic business decision to better serve our customer's long-term business needs and remain competitive in the medical device manufacturing environment,” Kathryn Misra, director of marketing, said in a Feb. 22 email to Plastics News.
Based in Tempe, Ariz., MedPlast is a contract manufacturer of single-use medical devices with 10 manufacturing sites in the United States and five more in Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Mexico, China and the United Kingdom. With support facilities, the company has 22 sites in all.
MedPlast produces diagnostic, orthopedic, surgical and other medical products for original equipment manufacturers with 1,800 employees.
In West Berlin, MedPlast's has a 60,000-square-foot facility with a Class 8 clean room, 44 molding presses from 28 to 300 tons, capabilities for multi-component, two-shot, over and insert molding; services for assembly, decorating and packaging; and specialty expertise in prismatic parts and medical mold making.
MedPlast is not commenting on what the West Berlin plant closure means in terms of job losses or operating efficiencies. But Misra did say: “Due to the proximity of our other N.J. facility, many employees have been offered similar positions at that facility.”
MedPlast has a 46,000-square foot plant in South Plainfield with clean rooms, a tooling center, various molding capabilities, device assembly and packaging, staples manufacturing, ultrasonic welding, and blister and pouching.
The announcement of the West Berlin plant closing comes a year after MedPlast doubled its size by acquiring the device manufacturing business of Vention Medical, which served many of the same customers and had been based in South Plainfield. That deal happened just two months after MedPlast was acquired by the private equity firms Water Street Health Care Partners and JLL Partners.
Following the Vention acquisition, Misra said MedPlast focused on strategic initiatives related to improving operations to meet “critical customer needs” related to safety, quality and optimizing processes “with the ultimate goal of bringing their innovations to life faster and more efficiently.”
She also said MedPlast continues to invest in compliance.
“We have a number of activities across all our 22 sites in an effort to drive awareness and educate employees about the importance of quality. These programs are a result of the competitive landscape of contract manufacturing for medical devices,” Misra said.