New deal unites Roembke, Diversified Manufacturing Technologies

An Indiana rubber and plastic tooling maker is taking an ownership stake in a similar California company, a move that will allow for expansion.

Roembke Manufacturing & Design Inc. of Ossian, Ind., is buying into Diversified Manufacturing Technologies Inc. of Placentia, Calif., to create a new entity called Roembke DMT LLC.

The deal keeps current DMT owners Mike McMillian and Tim Baber in place and adds Greg Roembke, owner and president of the Indiana firm.

"We have been in business since 1977, and through the 40-plus years we've been in business, with growth, we've accumulated quite a few customers on the West Coast over those years," Roembke said. "Over the last five to 10 years, we've had numerous customers in that area asking us to start something out there or just have a presence on the West Coast to provide easier, direct service."

Roembke Manufacturing makes injection and LSR molds. It posted an estimated $10 million in sales in 2019 in North America, putting it at No. 55 in Plastics News' most recent ranking of mold makers.

Roembke had looked at other potential opportunities in past years, and even considered expanding on his own in the West, but ultimately connected with McMillian and Baber early this year to begin discussions.

"Our personalities meshed. Our business models meshed as far as how we want to treat our employees and our customers," Roembke said. "Our companies didn't necessary compete for the same type of products."

Complementary product lines allow both sides to offer expanded service to their customers.

The new deal means Roembke DMT will begin looking for a new building to expand operations. Currently in roughly 7,500 square feet of space with about 15 employees in Placentia near Anaheim, Roembke said he sees the need to double or even triple space in 2021. The company is looking to remain close to its current location to maintain existing customers. Roembke Manufacturing & Design operates in about 70,000 square feet, with nearly 70 employees, in Indiana.

McMillian, one of the co-owners of Diversified and now one of a trio of owners at Roembke DMT, said a third party helped bring the two sides together.

"We have a common customer that introduced us and we started talking about it and thought it was a good operation for both parties to benefit from each other's experiences. We had been talking for six or seven months or so and decided to pull the trigger on this thing, so here we are. We're trying to merge together to have more resources."

Diversified Manufacturing Technologies makes custom rubber molds, plastic molds and precision machined products. Industries served include aerospace, military, medical, automotive, electronics and commercial.

Among its capabilities, Roembke makes custom LSR and rubber molds, plastic molds, LSR cold decks, molding automation solutions, downstream automation solutions and complete turnkey molding solutions, the firm said. It can supply everything from production equivalent prototype molds to full-scale high-cavitation production molds.

"It's going to be a good partnership," Roembke said. "It's not a competing company; it's definitely a complementary company between the two. We're not looking to change the existing products or customer base that the current DMT supplies. We're looking to add to that."

Moving to a new location will provide some much-needed space that will allow the California site to add services. "It allows us to expand. It allows us to better serve our customers because we'll have more resources. It allows us to get into the automation and processing side of things," McMillian said.

"We've been in this building for six years and we're packed like sardines in here," he said. "We're going to need another."

DMT started about 10 years ago, but McMillian and Baber go back another 25 years before that as they worked at a different company together before deciding to strike out on their own.