United Plastics Hiring up to 100 in Anaheim
By CHRIS CZIBORR
United Plastics Group Inc. plans to add up to 100 workers in Anaheim as part of a consolidation of testing and engineering operations and an upswing in the plastics sector.
“Our new hiring is mainly demand and growth related,” said Chris Terry, United Plastics’ marketing director. “The demand is coming from both regional customers and original equipment manufacturers.”
Officials of the Westmont, Ill.-based plastics maker recently shifted work to Anaheim from a Chicopee, Mass., plant. The 150,000-square-foot Anaheim facility employs about 278 workers, including 28 in its engineering and testing unit.
United Plastics hired about 10 engineers in the past few months for its testing operation, which handles centralized engineering and development for the company’s 11 facilities. Overall, United Plastics has 2,500 workers.
The company makes precision plastic products and develops injection molding processes for the medical, electronics, consumer, industrial and automotive markets. As such, the plastics sector can be viewed as a barometer of where the general economy is heading.
Last year, United Plastics estimated its business was off by about 25%, according to Jim Mahon, United Plastics’ vice president, western regional sales.
Company officials said the Anaheim expansion reflects big changes under way in the global plastics sector.
“We are in an industry that’s evolving from a cottage industry with many small players into an industry that is occupied by a small number of large players,” Mahon said. “There is consolidation globally and a demand by our customers to be able to service them in multiple locations.”
Mahon said makers of finished products that are building plants in East Asia and Mexico are turning to suppliers such as United Plastics to centralize their engineering and testing to simplify the supply process.
“A multi-unit company and its manufacturing cycle spread all over the world puts us in a position where some of these decentralized services need to be centralized,” Mahon said.
“When a customer in a remote region comes up with in-depth engineering, we will funnel that work to the Anaheim facility to do up-front engineering, tool making and product launch.”
United Plastics then would develop and shape that product and production process for the location the customer wants, Mahon said.
Company officials cited Clinton, Mass.-based Nypro Inc. as a chief competitor. Nypro has dozens of facilities globally, including a facility near San Diego.
Apart from California and Massa-chusetts, United Plastics has facilities in Illinois, Minnesota and Texas. The company has an operation in Britain as well as in Guadalajara and Monterrey. Next month, United Plastics is set to open a plant in Suzhou, China.
The company had $300 million in sales last year.
