Westfall Technik Opens Medical Molding Facility
The one-time MGS plant outside Chicago in Antioch, Ill. features multiple cleanrooms and will become a micromolding center of excellence.
Injection molding and tooling supplier Westfall Technik (Las Vegas, Nev.) has refurbished a purpose-built, 40,000-ft2 facility in suburban Chicago for precision medical molding and tooling. The former MGS Mfg. Group Inc. site was vacated in 2020 when that company consolidated its operations into Wisconsin.
The repurposed plant now features three Class 8-certified clean rooms plus one white space certified to Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP). The facility is working towards ISO 13485 certification, which it expects to achieve by September. The cleanrooms will be able to accommodate 23 injection molding machines, while the GMP compliant white space can house up to 15 injection machines. Westfall says presses to be installed will range from 35 to 400 tons, and that the site has a fully functional tool room, with climate-controlled mold storage. The company said that ultimately it will invest millions of dollars in new all-electric injection molding machines for the site.
Westfall said it intends to make the facility a center of excellence for plastics micromolding. Specifically, Westfall plans to install three M3 micromolding machines in the new Chicago plant. The M3 is an all-electric micromolding machine platform that Westfall acquired when it bought Mold Hotrunner Solutions Inc. (MHS) in December 2018.
The new medical molding facility outside Chicago hasn’t been Westfall’s only recent investment. In the last 18 months, Westfall tripled its clean-room space in Riverside, Calif.; doubled it in Union City, Calif.; and installed new clean rooms in both New Richmond, Wis., and in Tijuana, Mexico. Over the last four years, the company has acquired or launched 19 businesses in North America. The company’s portfolio of healthcare-related products includes medical devices, pharmaceutical delivery systems, diagnostic tools, and consumer health products.
The new Chicago plant augments the company’s regional production capacities. In the Midwest, Westfall already operate a toolmaking site in Willernie, Minn.; with molding in New Richmond, Wis.; and both tooling and molding in Wakefield, Mich.
Westfall Technik has converted a former MGS operation in Antioch, Ill. into a new medical molding and moldmaking site with multiple clean rooms.
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