Holding company Westfall Technik Inc. completed its acquisition of NPI/Medical of Ansonia, Conn., on May 4. Terms were not disclosed.
Fast-growing Westfall Technik purchased the injection molder and tool builder from Tonka Bay Equity Partners LLC of Minnetonka, Minn. Tonka Bay invested in the business in 2015.
Randy Ahlm is NPI/Medical CEO, and Edmund Meyer is chief financial officer.
"We can enhance NPI/Medical's prototype-to-production process to shorten time to market," Rick Shaffer said in an interview at NPE2018. Shaffer is Westfall Technik managing director based in Chandler, Ariz.
The holding company was incorporated in Delaware in September and is experiencing rapid-fire growth.
NPI/Medical is Westfall Technik's first investment in the East.
In the West, Westfall Technik purchased Fairway Injection Molds Inc. of Walnut Creek, Calif., and Integrity Mold Inc. of Tempe, Ariz., on Oct. 18; 10 Day Parts Inc., formerly Advanced Technology Inc., of Corona, Calif., and Elfy's Inc. of Hayward, Calif., on Feb. 9; AMS Plastics Inc. of El Cajon, Calif., and AMS's maquiladora Operaciones de Clase Mundial SA de CV of Tijuana, Mexico, on March 16; and AMA Plastics Inc. of Riverside, Calif., on April 13.
Those businesses operate more than 160 injection molding machines with clamping forces of 35-1,000 tons.
In a greenfield project, Westfall Technik is establishing the Inceptive Design Group in Huntington Beach, Calif. Vice President and General Manager Eric Schmidt will collaborate with the other businesses, and the group will serve as a hub for design functions.
NPI/Medical employs 90, operates 46 injection molding machines — primarily from Arburg, Toyo and Milacron — with clamping forces of 28-330 tons.
Looking 18 months ahead, Shaffer projected NPI/Medical's 2019 sales should increase about 50 percent from its current undisclosed volume.
NPI/Medical features a strategic DynaClass-brand tooling and molding system to achieve production-quality plastic injection molded parts in limited timeframes.
Capabilities for assembly, packaging, kitting and inventory management facilitate speed-to-market deliveries.
The business began in 1968 as Shriver Design, a three-person design-and-tooling shop.
The shop grew and shifted in 1982 to supplying parts and assemblies to medical device, health care, consumer goods and life sciences customers.
The move into the current Ansonia headquarters and manufacturing facility occurred in 1999.
While under the Spectrum Plastics Group, the organization adopted the NPI/Medical brand in 2013. The acronym stands for "new product introductions."
The 66,000-square-foot manufacturing facility has multiple production cells to accommodate concept development, prototyping, bridge tooling, production launches and high-volume programs.
NPI/Medical utilizes an IQMS enterprise-resource-planning system for real-time monitoring of each job.
The full-service tool room has nine certified mold makers and can produces prototypes for quick-turn low-volume manufacturing and short runs.
NPI/Medical has two Grade 7 clean rooms and one Grade 8 clean room, together occupying 3,450 square feet. One of the Class 7 clean rooms is used for assembly of products. The other two have 24 of the firm's 46 injection molding machines.
A dedicated 24/7 kitting service operates in a climate-controlled white room.