Medical injection molder Atalys LLC is expanding in the Dominican Republic.
"What we are doing is making it match the capabilities of our sites in the United States. Those sites have wider variety of equipment, more capacity and they have tooling capabilities to build and repair, all those things that are all site-based for us," said John Hoskins, chief commercial and technology officer at Atalys.
"We're creating that capability inside the Caribbean operation."
The new 32,000-square-foot facility will be adjacent to the company's current 15,000-square-foot location in Santo Domingo.
The new building will be dedicated to manual assembly operations with complementary processes of injection molding, pad printing, major tool repairs and warehousing.
The existing facility will focus on clean room injection molding as well as secondary operations such as testing and packaging.
With the additional space, Rochester, N.Y.-based Atalys will offer more manufacturing options in the Dominican Republic.
"We're anticipating growth and we're building it and they will come," Hoskins said. "The catalyst behind it was a movement towards providing better geographical support for our OEM partners."
The company expects to double its employment in the Dominican Republic. The existing facility has presses ranging from 30-165 tons of clamping force. Hoskins said the new facility will include a variety of tonnage machines.
Adding tool maintenance will also make the facility less dependent on its U.S. facilities.
"Now we're going to be able to have increased tooling maintenance and repair capacity in the Caribbean to support our customer base there," Hoskins said.
In 2022, Atalys, originally known as EG Medical, was sold to Dunes Point Capital LP.
Atalys is ranked No. 50 in Plastics News' North American injection molders with an estimated $200 million in sales. It also has manufacturing plants in Rochester and Asheboro, N.C.