Lakeshore Plastics adds capacity for caps, closures in Utah

Orem, Utah-based Lakeshore Plastics LLC relocated to a larger site to add capacity, capabilities and employees with a focus on caps and closure manufacturing services.

Founded in 2019 as a mold fabricator, Lakeshore Plastics manufactures products in addition to building injection molds for the packaging, containers, electrical housings and other markets.

In 2023, Lakeshore Plastics officials seized an opportunity to add a new customer that builds 4 million private-label caps per year for the environmental sampling space.

In filling the order, they saw a place to settle into the mid-tier market for custom runs of 1 million to 10 million caps, according to CEO Kyle Pontius.

"The private-label project got our feet wet in the industry where we can jump into the customizable caps side," Pontius said in a phone interview.

Company officials then invested about $1 million into moving from an 8,000-square-foot facility to a nearby 12,000-square-foot space.

The new site doubles capacity and has room for a customizable system with specialized molds to easily swap logos and textures on numerous cap sizes.

Caps can be customized by color, smooth or ribbed finishes and smooth or textured tops.

"In this market right now customers are trying to set themselves apart on the shelf," Pontius said. "We're hoping to be fairly unique in terms of the customer experience that we offer because we can fabricate a lot of this on site."

Lakeshore Plastics also hired a machinist and production lead and added cap-lining capabilities for vented, foam, foil and other applications as part of its expansion.

For caps, a stand-alone mold typically costs $40,000 to $80,000 but Lakeshore Plastics can produce a custom closure at a much lower initial cost, Pontius said.

"For anywhere between $5,000 and $10,000 you could customize the mold that we have on site. Basically, you're paying a one-time customization fee and then we would be able to run those caps," Pontius said.

Lakeshore Plastics has gone from two to five Absolute Haitian injection molding machines — three Haitian Mars servo-hydraulic presses and two Zhafir Zeres electric presses ranging from 100 to 427 tons — in the last two years.

Three molding machines are paired with top-entry robots from Absolute Robot for quality control related to aesthetics and sensitive materials.

The new facility also has room to add three more presses.

Company officials expect demand to grow for customizing caps that historically have not been customized due to the upfront cost.

"Today we're at 4 million caps and over the next five years we want to be 10 times that," Pontius said. "With the facility and machinery we have, it's totally reasonable that we could reach 40 million caps per year."

On the mold fabrication side, the Lakeshore Plastics expansion created space for a new computer nuericaly controlled lathe and three EDM machines to the existing CNC milling machine.

Pontius said several companies have worked with the mold fabrication team to onshore existing molds or rebuild molds that are difficult to move from their previous supplier.

In one case, a jewelry company was building its product cases in China. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the cases were stuck at a port with shipping costs going up by the day.

The cases now are produced by Lakeshore Plastics.

"We helped them to re-engineer it so it would be more cost effective, and we can give them more flexibility along the lines of a just-in-time approach," Pontius said. "We're delivering just what they need every month as opposed to ordering several months at a time."

Another customer converted a metal fabricated part of an electrical housing to a fire-retardant plastic material that was reshored.

"They rebuilt their molds with us and we run production here," Pontius said. "It gives them a better value. They're not ordering several months at a time."

Domestic manufacturing is resurging, he added.

"In many cases, customers are realizing that there's not a huge cost savings on projects going overseas. You may be unnecessarily adding risk and complexity working with a company overseas," Pontius said.