Plastics company accelerates its growth

• Image

The staff of Accelerated Plastics stands outside its newly expanded facility in New Richmond.

Talk about it

At a time when many businesses are struggling, Accelerated Plastics LLC in New Richmond is experiencing a mini boom.

In just a year since opening its new facility in the Business and Technical Park, the plastic injection molding business has already expanded. Accelerated Plastics recently began moving into a 10,000-square-foot storage addition, which has been added to its original 10,000-square-foot structure. That’s after doubling its size when it moved from its Hudson facility at the end of 2008.

“We knew we were going to expand,” said Kevin Rottinghaus, director of sales and marketing. “We didn’t know it would be this quickly.”

Rottinghaus said plans were to expand the facility in about four years.

“When we got in here on Jan. 1, 2009, it turned out we already needed more space,” he said.

Now the business is planning its next possible expansion, which could come within the next couple years, Rottinghaus said.

Accelerated’s success story is partly due to good timing and slower controlled growth.

When the nation’s economy declined, many larger plastic injection molding companies went out of business. In many cases the larger companies enjoyed huge contracts with the automobile industry, but those contracts fizzled as auto sales declined.

“Everything dried up and the big plastic injection molding companies just collapsed,” Rottinghaus said.

Also, many companies began seeking out U.S. vendors as they attempted to pump up the nation’s economy.

“They’re able to stamp ‘Made in the U.S.A.’ on it,” Rottinghaus said. “Keeping America going is really important to some of our customers.”

As a result of those two economic factors, Accelerated Plastics found many opportunities for new customers, Rottinghaus said.

In another case of good timing, Accelerated Plastics was also able to purchase used equipment at seriously reduced prices as companies went out of business.

“That helped us out a lot in terms of cost,” said Bill Johnson, company president.

To meet the growing demand for its services, Accelerated now runs two shifts for a total of 20 hours a day. Within the next month or two, Rottinghaus predicted, the local company will be running 24 hours a day.

The company now employs 10 people, compared to just two five years ago.

Accelerated Plastics deals with custom plastic injection molding work in the outdoor, medical, industrial and electronics industries.

They also deal with some packaging and assembly operations, providing complete service to their customers. After hiring Derek Johnson, a product designer, Accelerated can also design and create prototypes for customers to see and test.

“We’re able to take a paper napkin sketch and bring that to life,” Rottinghaus explained. “That’s something we used to job out.”

The company also works hard to meet the customer’s needs in a timely fashion, which is easier to do when you’re a smaller operation, Johnson said.

“We’re a small company,” he said. “People like to work with us.”

As the company settles into its bigger space, Rottinghaus acknowledged that the recent successes would not have been possible without the cooperation of the City of New Richmond.

“The city has been huge for us,” he said. “They’ve helped us grow. They want nothing more for us than to succeed.”

For more information about the company, call 715-246-7979 or visit www.acceleratedplastics.com.

Tags: new richmond, local news, business, industry