Arlington Machinery Inc. moved from a 40,000-square-foot facility in Elk Grove Village, Ill. — its home for 35 years — to a 140,000-square-foot plant in Lake Zurich, Ill., to accommodate a refurbishing and testing center and to keep more inventory in-house.
Founded in 1987, the company inspects, repairs and refurbishes used plastics machinery, including extrusion lines, shredders and injection molding presses. It offers plant support, metalworking and fabrication equipment.
"Long lead times across the board for new equipment has driven the demand for good working used equipment," President Alan Clarke said in an email.
Arlington Machinery now operates out of a much larger facility equipped with four 230-volt and 480-volt test stations and capabilities to load and unload machinery in excess of 70,000 pounds.
"We have upgraded our fleet of equipment to handle almost any size of equipment," Clarke said.
With full machine shop capabilities, Arlington now can offer complete rebuilding services, including fabrication, electrical panel build-outs and AC/DC motor conversions.
In addition, the new location has space for screw and barrel measuring and motor testing.
After making the move, Arlington hired two technicians and a machinery mover, bringing the number of employees to 13.
Many plastics processors learned the value of used machinery from a domestic source when the COVID-19 pandemic brought global lockdowns, shipping delays and supply shortages, according to Clarke. He is optimistic some first-time customers will become repeat customers.
"The plastics industry as a whole seems to be more inclined to buy good working used equipment," Clarke said. "Because of the supply constraints from COVID, a lot of companies had to turn to used equipment that wouldn't normally. The new customers that came to us in that time had a lot of success with used machines, so going forward there might be some growth from this."
In addition to machine sales and in-house repairs and refurbishment, Arlington Machinery offers appraisals and auctioning services, short-term storage facilities and machinery rigging and transportation services.