Blow molder and injection molder Fischer SA de CV started operations at a new $10 million plant in the state of Guanajuato, central Mexico, on Feb. 11, Managing Director Roberto Rodríguez Layún said.
The facility, in the Amistad Chuy María industrial park close to the city of Celaya, makes blow molded jerrycans for the food, agrochemical and cleaning industries. Rodríguez said an operation manufacturing parts for the auto industry will be added in 2021.
Celaya, at the heart of Guanajuato's expanding auto industry, is 332 miles northwest of Córdoba in Veracruz state, where Fischer was founded as a joint venture between Swiss blow and injection molder Fischer Söhne AG and a group of Mexican investors in 1998. It is now a wholly owned Mexican company.
The building is about 3,400 square meters (36,500 square feet) with space to grow up to 7,000 square meters (75,300 square feet), Rodríguez said in an email.
About $4.2 million of the $10 million investment went into equipment. The site currently has only extrusion blow molding machines, supplied by Kautex and Techne, on site.
There are about 35 workers there, Rodríguez said. The company expects to add more employees but also wants the site to have more automation in place.
About 16 percent of the company's business is with the auto industry "and we want to continue to grow" in that sector, Rodríguez said in January 2019, adding that the company's sales totaled $21.5 million in 2018.