Uniloy nears end of transition to independent company

A year ago, the transition to an independent Uniloy Inc., with full technical centers in the U.S., Europe and Asia, was fully underway.

The Tecumseh, Mich.-based blow molding equipment manufacturer announced at K 2019 that it resumed building machines in a 100,000-square-foot facility in Magenta, Italy. Now the process is almost complete.

Uniloy moved its machine building to Tecumseh from Batavia, Ohio, just ahead of the pandemic. Since then, it has hired about 70 employees, planned for three machine demonstrations at NPE2021 and started the search for a new location for its technical center in Ahmedabad, India.

Uniloy's facility in India is busy well into 2021 with a backlog of orders for machines to blow mold containers for edible oils, grains, fertilizers, sanitizers and cleaners.

"This is our company now, and we're very proud of what we're trying to build," Uniloy President and CEO Brian Marston said. "For the last year we've talked about creating an independent Uniloy. Now it is the new Uniloy."

Founded in 1963, Uniloy changed ownership in 2019 after 21 years as a unit of Milacron Holdings Corp. The company has been using Milacron as a contract manufacturer in India, but that is winding down, according to Marston.

"It's a temporary situation. We will be getting our own facility this year [in India]," Marston said in a phone interview, adding that the goal is to relocate by the end of 2021. "This will be the final step in our creation of an independent Uniloy."

Milacron had continued to handle some operations and office functions under technical service agreements, but Marston said those are essentially completed.

Milacron made Uniloy machines in Batavia, Ohio, and used the Tecumseh site in Michigan for aftermarket rebuilds and molds.

Now every model of Uniloy machine — industrial, injection blow, shuttle blow and reciprocating screw intermittent-extrusion blow molding — is built in Tecumseh.

Marston said Uniloy completely moved the Batavia operation in the February-March time frame and up until October managed to ship every machine from Tecumseh on time or earlier.

"The process has gone extremely well," Marston said, adding many Batavia plant employees relocated to Tecumseh, where they joined a strong team.

"Prior to the Milacron acquisition, all the Uniloy machinery was made in Michigan," Marston said. "Afterward, a lot of those employees stayed with the company by taking other roles. So half our staff was already here and then we've hired more to train with the experienced staff."

The Tecumseh site now employs about 140 people with 70 hired this year. In addition to assemblers and laborers, Uniloy hired full financial, engineering, administrative and IT staffs.

"Imagine a spinout where there was basically no company with back office and management," Marston said. "We completed our staffing in early 2020. That was a significant undertaking."

Uniloy is in the final stages of taking over all back office functions as well as implementing its own enterprise resource planning system.

"Not only do we manufacture machines, we do service with representatives working remotely out in the field globally. We have parts, inventory, shipping, rebuild on-site, research and development, and Uniloy University, which is a lab for training, for external testing by suppliers and customer trials. This is a full technical center," Marston said.

The Uniloy facility in Magenta, Italy, which is outside of Milan, is the company's European headquarters.

Milacron had shuttered the Magenta facility in 2015 and consolidated European assembly of blow molding machines in the Czech Republic. When Osgood Capital and Cyprium Investment Partners bought Uniloy for $51.9 million in July 2019, the new owners' first priority was to reopen the Magenta operation.

When the new owners acquired the business, they ramped up the Italian operations, which Marston said had been used only for sales, service and some engineering.

The site has been fully operational and independent since November 2019 with the addition of Uniloy management, parts, inventory and machine building in addition to service, sales and engineering.

"This facility was the first to get off the TSAs [technical service agreements] with Milacron." Marston said. "We moved that extremely quickly. We're up at full capacity compared to any point in the Uniloy history in Europe. We're very excited about the success we've had there."

The first blow molding machine of the newest Uniloy facility in Ahmedabad, India, was built about seven years ago. The region was considered more of a startup for the blow molding product line, however, and only a couple machines a year were manufactured there until about 2018, when Milacron moved toward full production.

The new owners plan to build on that as part of their strategy to have a global presence for blow molding. The site is a full technical center with engineering, service, sales and parts in an industrial area outside Mumbai, where a lot of plastics companies operate.

Uniloy is looking for its own manufacturing plant in the region. The company wants to begin relocating operations by the end of 2021. The search follows a series of challenges in India related to the pandemic.

"COVID-19 significantly impacted India. Of all the regions where we do business, this was the biggest impact in terms of shutdown. They shut down some 12 or so weeks. That was something nobody could anticipate," Marston said.

When businesses could reopen in July and August, Uniloy brought employees back and took orders again.

"At this point, we are significantly backlogged," Marston said. "We should have our best year in 2021 in terms of new machinery out of India."

Machine builders at the site are focused on some of the smaller shuttle machines, while others are looking at introducing an all-electric machine there and an injection blow molding machine.

"Having the right machines for that market will drive our growth," Marston said.

For first time in Uniloy history, the company will have three machines operating at NPE, which is scheduled for May 2021 in Orlando, Fla. Attendees will see demonstrations of an injection blow machine, a recip machine and a shuttle machine with a partner.

"They will all have new technology," Marston said. "It's not just showing a machine that has been in our stable. These are new thoroughbreds that will run out ahead of pack."

Uniloy has installed close to 5,000 machines around the world. That's why it's important for the company to have three technical centers, Marston said.

"Those assets are expensive, and we will continually support our machines regardless of age," he added.

In the last 18-24 months, Uniloy had finalized development of a barrier system for bottles produced by injection blow molding. The development should appeal to pharmaceutical companies that need oxygen and moisture barriers in bottles as well as for glass replacement.

"I don't believe anyone else has perfected the barrier system the way we did," Marston said.

Uniloy has seen the greatest demand for injection blow machines from the biotech and pharmaceutical markets, followed by food, water, juice and dairy, and more recently cleaning and sanitation products. A lot of the mold activity has involved cannisters.

Regarding the lack of Lysol and Clorox wipes on store shelves, Marston said, "It's not necessarily because of the cannisters. The wipes and paper products portion has been tied up in the supply chain."

During the pandemic, mold sales have been steady and parts sales increased as Uniloy customers tried to keep machines running.

"The machines were running hot for personal care and sanitizing as seen by the earnings reports of some of the major packaging companies," Marston said. "They had a good year, and we kept them running. I'm pleased we contributed to their success with our parts sales."

Uniloy machinery sales were slow through the early part of the summer but then saw a significant resurgence, Marston said. The company's backlog now is higher than it was a year ago.

New products also are on the way.

"Uniloy won't be a stodgy 1960s company," Marston said. "We're talking where we're going to be for the next five, 10 and 50 years."