PTA Plastics adds equipment for medical molding, reshoring

Injection molder and mold maker PTA Corp. has invested $2 million to expand capacity, adding new "smart" presses to its facilities in Oxford, Conn., and Longmont, Colo.

Company officials said the employee-owned firm, dba PTA Plastics, expects steady growth in orders from medical customers and anticipates additional business resulting from the reshoring trend in the United States. They cited market optimism and a backlog of current orders.

In the fourth quarter of 2020, PTA added five Wittmann Battenfeld presses and one Engel, sending three machines to each of its two sites and giving the company a total of 39. The Longmont site received 100- and 130-ton presses and a 1,235-ton replacement machine. The 130-ton model is for the company's Class 7 clean room.

Oxford received presses with clamping forces of 55, 180 and 730 tons, as well as new finishing equipment including a high-tonnage thermal machine for brass inserts and a multicolored pad printing machine that is self-contained and fully automated.

President Rich Dorans said PTA is pursuing advanced technology and automation, and the company selected equipment based in large part on its interconnectivity, and its integration back to Wittmann Battenfeld and Engel. He emphasized that the advent of Industry 4.0 has made it important to integrate automated manufacturing with the supply chain.

"Assuring that all presses are equipped with Industry 4.0 technology designed to leverage machine learning and AI [artificial intelligence] will revolutionize PTA's manufacturing operations," Dorans said in a news release. "The manufacturing floor advancements at both facilities [support] our strategic plan to achieve a productive smart factory moving forward."

The Longmont site is certified by MedAccred, an industry-managed quality-assurance program, for mechanical assembly of medical devices and expects to receive injection molding certification in March.

The Oxford-based company, which employs 230, also serves the defense/security industries and the emerging technologies market and has its own tool rooms at both sites.