Smith Metal Products Breaks Ground on New Manufacturing Facility

Smith Metal Products, the metal and ceramic injection molding division of Plastic Products Company, Inc., broke ground in Center City, Minn., for a new state-of-the-art, 60,000-square-foot manufacturing facility. Smith manufactures metal and ceramic components using metal injection molding and ceramic injection molding. 

The company provides components to a wide variety of industries and applications, including long-term implant devices and surgical devices.

Smith currently has a manufacturing facility in Lindstrom, Minn. In addition the company maintains a sales and engineering office on the West Coast. The new facility will relocate the company three miles from their current location to a new industrial park. The new site also will allow for future expansion, officials noted. 

Lori Bjork, general manager of Smith said the new facility is needed to meet future growth targets and support our customer base.  “

We are fortunate to be one of the manufacturing companies in the U.S. who has continued to grow in this challenging economy,” Bjork said. “American manufacturers cannot ignore foreign competition. We have to do what we have always done best; lead as the world’s innovators creating value for the customer by offering advanced engineering solutions to complex problems”. 

Mike Brown, director of sales and marketing remarked said producing products close to the point of use not only decreases the environmental footprint, but it creates opportunities for highly skilled jobs in the United States.

“To maintain our competitiveness we rely heavily on automated systems rather than low skilled manual labor.  We consider it one of our greatest achievements when we can work with a customer to discontinue manufacturing components overseas,” Bjork said. “By leveraging our talented and innovative engineering specialists, we have been able to either prevent projects from going overseas or return projects to the U.S.  We don’t just look at a project from the component level. We look for novel ways to reduce costs beginning with raw materials through the end consumer.”

Officials said that partners such BASF Corporation, which supplies the majority of Smith’s raw materials, are “essential” to firm’s success.