Major New Injection Molding Group Emerges

In just seven months, an integrated group of injection molding, prototyping, and moldmaking companies with six operations from coast to coast, over 200 injection machines from 28 to 1000 tons, and nearly 1000 employees has emerged through a series of strategic acquisitions. The new holding company behind this burst of activity is called Westfall Technik, based in Chandler, Ariz., and founded last year by former Nypro CEO Brian Jones. Its managing director is Rick Shaffer, a plastics industry veteran with previous posts at Beloit, Demag, Van Dorn Demag, and Netstal. The firm is backed by two New York-based private-equity firms, Lee Equity Partners and Blackbern Partners. Between last October and this past May, Westfall took what the firm describes as “the first steps in the realization of a vision to build a market-leading group of plastics experts whose combined synergies and integrated network provides optimum engineered solutions throughout the plastics manufacturing process.” Westfall Technik plans to continue to grow through acquisitions and internal, “organic” growth. The company’s ambitions are reflected in referring to itself as a “global holding company.”

Its website states that the firm aims to provide “high-end manufacturing solutions” for the medical, packaging, and consumer-goods industries “through selective juggling of specific core competencies” and a focus on automated systems and high-performance, all-electric injection machines. The company also claims to offer “effective Industry 4.0 concepts” and “unique barrier and IML technology,” as well as cavity-specific sorting, OEE optimization, RFID labeling, and “seamless tracking.”

The firm launched itself into production operations with the acquisitions last October of Fairway Injection Molds Inc., a moldmaker in Walnut, Calif.; and Integrity Mold Inc., a full-service injection molder in Tempe, Ariz. That was followed in February by the addition of two prototyping and short-run molding businesses—10 Day Parts Inc. (formerly known as Advanced Technology Inc.), Corona, Calif.; and Elfy’s Inc., Hayward, Calif. In March, Westfall Technik purchased AMS Plastics Inc., a medical-oriented injection molder in El Cajon, Calif., with molding operations in Tijuana, Mexico. April brought the acquisition of AMA Plastics Inc., a fairly large injection molder in Riverside, Calif. And the group expanded to the East Coast with May’s addition of NPI Medical Inc., Ansonia, Conn. Also in May, Westfall purchased an Arburg freeformer 3D printer (photo).