Moll moves west

Custom molder Moll Industries (Dallas, TX) has nearly completed the move of operations from its former Costa Mesa, CA site to a renovated facility in Tucson, AZ, lowering the company''s costs while allowing facilities upgrades and continued access to West Coast customers, according to company representatives.

Moll''s Dana Gecker estimated that labor, tax, and utilities savings between California and Arizona range between 10-20%. The 85,000-sq-ft building features seven material silos instead of only one and will allow Moll to move to a centralized material handling system. In all, Moll invested $3.5 million into the building, adding a 5000-sq-ft cleanroom, upgrades to the electrical and utilities access, and new equipment for manufacturing monitoring, as well as the aforementioned material-handling upgrade.

At full capacity, the plant can accommodate 60 injection molding machines, including 25 in a cleanroom environment for medical molding. The company continues to add production, with current machines running from 22-130 tons, according to Gecker. Moll relocated several key members of the former Costa Mesa site to the Tucson area, including its operations manager. Once the new plant is at full capacity, it''s expected to employ 150.-Tony Deligio; [email protected]