Plastic Injection Molding expansion allows for improved capacity, speed

A north Richland company is poised for

growth with the addition of a new 28,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in the

back of its existing building that includes a 4,000-square-foot mezzanine.

Plastic Injection Molding Inc.

manufactures filter body parts for agricultural irrigation, special parts for

medical diagnostic equipment, and snap-on dials for optical sporting equipment

like rangefinders at 2695 Battelle Blvd.

The 23-year-old company also can

manufacture whimsical things, like the colored plastic rings kids reach for

while riding on the Gesa Carousel of Dreams. (The company donated the rings to

the Kennewick nonprofit.)

Plastic Injection Molding’s roster of

clients includes Cadwell Labs, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Battelle

Memorial Institute, Fluor Hanford and Leupold & Stevens, among others.

Owner Ken Williams said that nearly 30

percent of the company’s jobs are local, with the rest from the Northwest

region and beyond.

“When we started the company, it was

just (my wife) Sharon and I,” Williams said. “Now we are 15 people, and we keep

adding equipment and auxiliary machines. We’ve outgrown the building we’re in.”

Plastic Injection Molding currently

has nine injection molding machines and one in storage — the biggest being a

230-ton Van Dorn molding machine.

The plant also can handle secondary

operations such as tooling, welding, assembly and packaging.

The $3.1 million expansion project

will allow the company to add a 400-ton plastic injection machine, which means

new capabilities to manufacture bigger plastic parts.

 “We’re limited to building parts that are

12-by-12 inches and weigh a little over 20 ounces,” Williams said.

The company also will have additional

space for more tooling machines to build more of its own molds.

Currently, Plastic Injection Molding

creates 25 percent of its own molds in-house and are at 80 percent capacity for

a single shift. Williams said he hopes to have enough equipment for an extended

single shift, running from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day.

“We do lose out of most jobs from

speed of building or getting the job to market. We lose them because they may

need the parts in two weeks instead of eight,” he said. “We want to grow our

capabilities and be more efficient.”

The ultimate goal is to make molds

faster, he said. The computer numerical control machines would be running in

parallel, significantly decreasing the time it takes to get plastic parts into

production.

The plant also needs a bigger space

for another reason: robots.

“We’ll have more space between

machines and add robots to add automation,” Williams said. “Workers will be

able to focus on more value-added tasks other than just pulling parts from

machines.”

He hopes to add one this year and four

to five more in 2020.

The robots are custom made for

injection molding and can pull parts out of the machine without setting them on

the conveyor. They also can sort and identify reject parts and perform basic

quality control.

“That’ll mean we can run machines

longer. We’re adding capacity without adding more people, trying to get rid of

repetitive tasks and remain competitive,” Williams said.

The Williams family founded the

company in 1996 with the help of Ken’s grandfather, John Recter, founder of

Western Sintering Co. in Richland. Ken’s father was a material scientist who

worked on material research for Hanford and later went on to start Kiona

Vineyards.

“I grew up around and seeing what

manufacturing was,” Williams said.

He was working in information

technology support for manufacturing companies in Seattle when he took the leap

to start his own manufacturing company with the support of his grandfather.

“Grandpa Rector was interested in

building a plastic company,” Williams said. “He said he had five good years

left in him — he was 79 at the time — and the time and money and needed a

project, so we formed a corporation and we moved back to Richland, bought 20

acres from the city, and built Plastic Injection Molding from the ground up.”

Williams said it wasn’t easy at the

beginning.

 “For a time, we had no sales and lost a ton of

money, but we slowly built our customer base and eventually paid off all our debts,”

Williams said.

Williams said he expects to receive the city’s

occupancy permit in the next three months and that’s when they’ll start moving

machines over to the new building.