Fertile economy sowing a harvest of expansion

Bottle blow molding plant opens in Brampton

Amcor PET Packaging has opened a new 275,000 sq. ft. manufacturing facility in Brampton, Ont., its sixth manufacturing operation in Canada. The new plant will serve as the company’s main blow molding and warehousing operation in the Toronto area. According to David Andison, vice-president, operations, two new blow molding lines have been installed at the plant. Eventually all the blow-molding machines from the company’s Mississauga facility will be moved to the Brampton location. The Mississauga facility will injection-mold preforms, as well as serve as a research and development centre and head office.

Andison says the new Brampton plant will eventually employ approximately 150 people. The plant is located near Coca-Cola’s new state-of-the-art bottling plant, which is scheduled to open in March 2001. Amcor’s Brampton plant will service Coca-Cola, as well as other customers.

Italian injection machine manufacturer is back

Negri Bossi is re-entering the North American marketplace. The company, based in Milan, Italy, has opened a 7,000 sq. ft. sales and service center in Concord, Ont. to serve Canada and the US.

Willy Hauer, the president of Negri Bossi America Inc., is a veteran of the wire & cable equipment industry. Larry Pascucci, director, sales & marketing, has over twenty years of experience in engineering, sales and marketing of injection molding machines and hot runners. The company has already sold 25 machines in Quebec.

“We’re offering high quality machines at a very competitive price,” says Pascucci. “Above all, we’re emphasizing service.”

Negri Bossi’s product range consists of: the Canbio series of hydraulic presses, 40 to 530 tonnes; the Victor series of hybrid machines (hydraulic clamp, electric screw drive), 580 to 1400 tonnes; and the Canbimat series for two component molding, 85 to 320 tonnes.

New building addition achieves two aims for molder

Mitchell Plastics finished this autumn what began last spring, when the company broke ground for a major addition to its main plant. The expansion, completed in October, provided an additional 109,500 sq. ft. of plant and office space at the main plant, allowing the company to consolidate operations and staff from two smaller plants. All operations will now be run out of the single facility in Kitchener, Ont. which, with the addition, has a total of 168,500 sq. ft. of floor space.

The addition gives the company 43 percent more floor space and simultaneously accomplishes the objectives of bringing all staff and production under one roof and furnishing more room for current business and projected growth.

Features of the upgraded facility include a new painting operation, 36 molding machines ranging from 50- to 1500-tons in clamping force, and a reconfigured plant layout to improve material and product flow, according to Mitchell Plastics’ owner and president, Murray Ariss. The company provides pre- and post-molding services such as design, tooling, assembly, heat-staking and ultrasonic welding. Ariss says the company will install its 37th machine, a 3000-ton injection molding press, in February 2001.

Extruder adding new production facility

CPI Plastics Group Ltd. is leasing a new facility in Mississauga, Ont. that will provide the company with a much-needed 82,000 sq. ft. of additional production space. The plant is the company’s seventh and increases its total production floor space to 391,000 sq. ft., up from 218,000 sq. ft. in 1998.

According to CPI’s chairman and CEO Peter F. Clark, the new plant will be used to meet the increasing demand for the company’s eon brand of outdoor decking and spa cladding systems. The eon product line is manufactured using the proprietary Extrudawood wood-replacement technology. Extrudawood profiles have the color, texture and grain of wood, but are made almost entirely of polystyrene (CP, Oct. 2000). The division under which the eon product line is sold, Eon Outdoor Systems, is currently growing at 40 to 50 percent a year.