For Orbis Corp., one idea of success is getting closer to the company's customers — and in more ways than one.
The maker of reusable packaging such as durable plastic pallets and totes is expanding manufacturing into Texas to create production capacity in a new part of the country for the Oconomowoc, Wis.-based company.
"We're expanding for, and because of, our customers. The more customers that like and use reusable packaging, that's driving our expansion," Orbis President Norm Kukuk said in a recent interview.
"The Greenville, Texas, manufacturing plant ... needed more capacity. And instead of continuing to expand existing facilities where we're running out of room, we just don't have room to expand, it made sense to go to a new geographic region where our customers are continuing to be in between the South and Southwest," he said.
Manufacturing in Texas creates a broader manufacturing footprint for Orbis, creating shipping efficiencies for a certain portion of the company's customer base that has been serviced out of other locations up until now. "Texas gets us further South and Southwest," he said.
So there is the geographic aspect of being closer to customers, but there also is a desire to be more integrated with its customer base. And one way to do that is listening to the market to ensure the company has a lineup of products responsive to customer needs.
"The general theme is Orbis continues to have more of our core customers wanting to do more with us on reusable packaging, and we're continuing to invest in how we better support those efforts and ensuring that we're successfully helping them," Kukuk said.
"That's our goal in many perspectives. So whether it's a shipping point, understanding their supply chain and how we positively impact their supply chain, getting to know the right people, knowing their business, our goal in many facets is to be close to our customers," Kukuk said.
Creating manufacturing in Texas helps give Orbis easier access to customers in the West, including those in agriculture. "Whether it's within consumer products, distribution, retail distribution, there's many [Orbis] products that work within the customers' warehouses, their distribution centers and ship to retail," the company president said.
A downside to the expansion into Texas is that Orbis has decided to close a smaller manufacturing site in Menasha, Wis., with layoffs scheduled to begin in March. Orbis, which has a network of a dozen manufacturing sites in the United States, Canada and Mexico, previously said some of the displaced workers could be offered jobs at other company locations in the Fox Valley region of Wisconsin.
The closing site is 101,000 square feet, with minimal room for expansion, while the new location in Texas has some 400,000 square feet.
Orbis continues to grow, but there also is increasing societal pressure on the use of plastics in general. And single-use plastics in particular.
Kukuk said the company's success comes from sitting in a "sweet spot" of how plastics can be used responsibly. Not only can Orbis products ship goods for years, depending on the application, but they also can then be recycled at the end of their useful life, he said.
Orbis buys back reusable packaging, regrinds the plastic and then it uses that resin to make new products. "We take it back. We regrind it and we'll give them a credit and we'll make new packaging. So there's always a secondary life, a new life for that plastic resin," he said.
"I've seen date codes still from the 1990s on some pallets. I mean, handled the right way, they can last a long time," the president said.
"We're continuing to just to focus on our customers. And how do we continue to grow with them? Texas was part of that growth strategy. The acquisition, getting us into some space we haven't played before," Kukuk said.
Much of the growth at Orbis, over time, has been internal, but the company recently acquired Creative Techniques Inc. of Orion Township, Mich., an acquisition that expands capabilities and engineering expertise.
Kukuk previously pointed to CTI's front-end processes, tooling development, rapid prototyping and high-quality finished products as attractive reasons why Orbis made that deal in October 2024.
Orbis is a subsidiary of Menasha Corp.