Machinery makers seek North American locations

As Plastics Machinery & Manufacturing marks its 10th anniversary, the staff is looking back on the events and issues that shaped our coverage over our first decade. Read more of our 10 Trends for 10 Years here.

By Karen Hanna

Amid changing economic realities, machinery manufacturers are coming to (North) America — hoping to benefit from convenience, lower costs or a more regulation-friendly environment.  

“The global business environment is changing so much that the very successful model we had, over the next 100 years we have to alter it,” said Guido Frohnhaus, managing director of technology and engineering for Arburg GmbH + Co. KG, which touted its "local-to-local" approach at NPE2024. 

In recent years, as they have struggled to overcome the difficulties of the COVID-19 pandemic, OEMs have eyed the potential of making themselves more at home in North America. 

According to Wittmann Group President Michael Wittmann at NPE2024, strict regulations in parts of Europe, along with high wages and inflation, have been factors affecting the German IMM and robot maker’s operations there. 

“And I really have to say one thing is that the U.S. has become our biggest market; in the meantime, Germany has dropped down to second place,” Wittmann said.   

Companies looking to expand their footprint include Absolute Haitian, Engel, Entek and LS Mtron.  

In an effort to circumvent logistical and supply chain snags, as well as a 25 percent tariff placed on Chinese machinery, Absolute Haitian announced in early 2024 that a plant in Mexico will be responsible for the majority of IMMs shipped to the U.S. and Canada. 

Engel in 2023 expanded its York, Pa., automation center to reduce delivery times, and also is investing in Mexico. It announced in 2024 a $32.3 million investment to build its 10th and newest production facility, in Queretaro, Mexico, for building new IMMs. 

“Let’s hope that the market needs this additional capacity soon,” Stefan Engleder, CEO of the Engel Group, said at NPE2024. 

Entek also recently added to its U.S. production capabilities, with the construction of a 100,000 plant in Henderson, Nev., for production of wear parts, extruders and materials-handling equipment. 

“Increasing our manufacturing capabilities is important for us; we needed more space, and more workers, to keep up with our growth, including the growth of our wear parts business,” Linda Campbell, VP of extrusion sales, told Plastics Machinery & Manufacturing (PMM). “This expansion will help us meet our aggressive forecast for new business in the coming years.”   

Meanwhile, South Korea-based LS Mtron is investing in its sales and service teams. Peter Gardner, president of LS IMM USA, believes the parent company will build a domestic assembly plant once it achieves its near-term goal of claiming a 10 percent market share in the U.S., where it already has four locations.  

The U.S. is “where we want to win,” he told PMM last year during a discussion of the company’s North American growth strategy. 

“If we do our job here, they will put up an assembly plant in North America,” he said. “We are going to get that 10 percent, then it is on to the next level.”  

And primary equipment OEMs aren’t the only companies that have expanded their efforts in North America. HRSflow, for example, announced in 2015 a new 40,000-square-foot plant in Byron Center, Mich., that’s a duplicate of production facilities in Italy and China. That same year, recycling equipment maker Avian announced a multi-million-dollar plan to add a West Chicago, Ill., location to its stable of production plants in China and Europe.