Plastics News 2017 Show Daily - October 19, 2017 - 7

Plastics News, October 19, 2017 * 7

FAKUMA SHOW DAILY

By Steve Toloken
Plastics News Staff

VEM Tooling Ltd.

Mold maker VEM Tooling Ltd. is
opening a new factory in Bulgaria in a joint venture with German
injection molder Mecalit GmbH
Kunststoffverarbeitung and is
planning additional investments in
India and Thailand.
VEM, which is German-owned
but has its factories in three Asian
countries, said the move to Bulgaria next year is in response to European customers, including Mecalit,
who want to source molds closer
to home.
It is investing at least $1.5 million
in the plant in Plovdiv, Bulgaria,
which will be located at an existing
Mecalit factory. It's VEM's first facility outside Asia.
"I do have a lot of European customers who, 10 years ago, were
very excited to go to China or to
Asia, who now tell me 'Ah, we'd
rather be in Eastern Europe or stay
in Europe,'" said President Marc
Weinmann.
VEM, which has operations in
China, Thailand and India, is also
continuing to make more investments in Asia. Part of that is driven
by what it says is a shift away from
China as a source of lower-cost
molds.
The company, for example, is
expanding a factory in Pune, India,
that it opened last year. It's doubling the floor space of the operation to 3,000 square meters by renting additional space and now has
85 employees, up from 35 when it
opened, Weinmann said.
"I can still see China costs going
up for the next few years, and India
is a growth story itself," he said,
noting demand from carmakers
such as BMW who want to localize
production in India for cars made
for the local market.
"We're going to grow no matter
but it will happen in the near future
that we will move some work from
China to Bulgaria and to India, for
our very cost-sensitive customers," Weinmann said.
VEM is also planning to open a
new facility in Thailand next year,
where it does both mold making
and injection molding in a facility in Rayong that opened in 2010,
Weinmann said.
The new Rayong plant, which
is also about a $1.5 million investment, will have a clean room for
medical molding. Weinmann said
VEM is seeing more demand from
local Thai customers, in contrast
to its operations in China, which
are almost entirely export-oriented.
The China plant, in the southern
city of Shenzhen, is VEM's oldest
and largest mold making factory,
with about 200 employees.
The Chinese plant remains competitive but needs to automate and
upgrade to handle China's rising
costs, Weinmann said. The Shenzhen plant will lead company-wide
automation planning.
"We will be automating China
first, and then what we learn from
China we pass on to the other factories," he said.
China will become a more technology-driven operation.

Hall A6, Booth 6514
"We see shifts going away from
China, and if you want to stay in
China, you have to specialize,"
he said. "So, we will specialize in
China in smaller, high-precision
molds. We have to go with the flow,
and the flow is away from China to
Europe and India."
The company, which opened
its first factory in Shenzhen in

2003, launched its current period
of heavy investment with the India operation last year, Weinmann
said, because changes in the industry are driving both consolidation
and higher technology.
"We have to get bigger; there's
no other choice but to get bigger,"
he said.
The company has about $15 million in annual sales now, with global production of about 500 molds,
but it is targeting $25 million in annual sales in five years, Weinmann
said.

Plastics News photo by Caroline Seidel

VEM to open mold making plant in Bulgaria

Marc Weinmann, president of VEM Tooling Ltd.

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