Featuring a state-of-the-art, 26-acre campus focused on highly engineered polymers, Orion Performance Compounds opens for business in April in Lugoff, SC.

Orion’s leadership team, headed by President/CEO Jim LeGacy and COO Tom Drye, boasts more than 200 years of plastics industry experience.

Realizing that customers in North America are in need of improved service and on-time delivery of highly engineered polymers, while also witnessing market growth over the past few years, Orion’s leaders recognized that a void existed for a true “center of excellence” compounding organization, the company said.

“We have assembled a strong veteran team at Orion,” LeGacy noted. “We could not be more excited about this opportunity. Being reliable, on time, and a strong customer advocate should not be the exception. We are all looking forward to making our customers’ jobs easier through technology, speed, and reliability.”

Orion will make compounds from a variety of engineering thermoplastics, including PEEK, PPSU, PPS, PSU, PEI, POM, PPO, PC, PC/ABS, ABS nylon, PE, PP, biopolymers, and various forms of recycled materials. Fillers will include specialty glass and carbon fibers, flame retardants, and a full range of specialized lubricants, UV additives, custom colors, and low-warp additives.

Equipment on hand includes a range of single- and twin-screw compounding lines equipped with the latest feeding and material processing systems. The facility will also feature a fully equipped plastics testing lab with mechanical, analytical, and UL flammability testing capabilities.

Orion is primarily targeting the healthcare, electrical, mobility, green, and industrial markets, promising sample lead times of two weeks and production lead times of four weeks, the company said. The company has an “aggressive” growth plan focused on a narrow list of customers. “Our goal is to do a great job with a smaller list of customers to provide best-in-class service,” LeGacy explained.

Building the 26-acre Orion compounding site “alongside my talented and experienced colleagues has been a joyful challenge,” Drye added. “Our goal was to build a state-of-the-art manufacturing site and center of excellence. Mission accomplished! Starting inside a 50,000-square-foot shell building with 40 feet of clear height, we had the blank canvas for which we utilized extensive design engineering to optimize the people-machine interface for today and future expansion. A key part of the investment for our customers is new state-of-the-art manufacturing and lab equipment to maximize our capabilities, response time, repeatability, and reliability. Orion is ready to hit the ground running, buoyed by our experienced professional compounding staff,” said Drye.