Growth, demand spur major investments at Technipaq

CRYSTAL LAKE – Inside their Crystal Lake headquarters, employees at packaging products maker Technipaq move constantly along the production floor to keep up with heightened activity as numerous machines hum, causing them to elevate their voices.

It’s a scene inside Technipaq created partly by executives’ long-term plans and by their customers in the health care industry – both new and existing – who are wanting more of the manufacturer’s packaging products.

Technipaq earlier this winter unveiled a converted 4,500-square-foot former warehouse space in its Crystal Lake location that now houses smaller pouch machines for production.

As part of the estimated $400,000 investment, the room created space within its main production floor for a new, larger pouch machine that can increase production capacity for the manufacturer’s larger preformed pouches by 12 to 12.5 percent annually.

Meanwhile, a few miles away in its Cary facility, Technipaq is preparing to install a 175,000-pound lamination machine, matching the size of a semitruck, to give the manufacturer even more production capacity – an investment totaling "several million dollars," said Brian Rosenburg, vice president for sales and marketing.

“We are seeing nice growth with our existing customers. We are seeing new business with existing customers, as well as new customers,” Rosenburg said. “We are getting it three ways – growth with existing customers, new opportunities with existing customers and new customers overall.”

The factors helped Technipaq beat its overall sales projection for 2015, when the company exceeded expectations by 2 percent and finished the year with 15 percent growth in overall sales. For 2016, the manufacturer with its new production investments has targeted 16 percent sales growth.

The increased activity and new equipment also caused Technipaq to hire about 15 new employees, bringing the company’s ranks to 175 total employees.

Since 1984, Technipaq has supplied and made flexible packages for businesses in the health care, pharmaceutical and food industries to hold its own products.

The Crystal Lake-based manufacturer lately has seen demand rise for its preformed pouches, a product line that represents 70 percent of the family-owned company’s sales and safely packages medical equipment for customers in the health care industry.

“It’s an amazing growth spurt this company is going through. It’s also based on what our customers are doing, so they are going through some amazing growth spurts,” Kyle Vlasak, director of sales and marketing said. “Medical is big.”

Up until the purchase of the large lamination machine, Technipaq had been using its 45,000-square-foot facility in Cary strictly for extra storage. The company’s recent equipment and building investments now moves Technipaq’s manufacturing operations into two buildings for the first time, said Director of Operations Korey Beckman.

Beckman said the new lamination machine has the ability to produce products at five times the capacity than the company’s two, smaller lamination machines combined. The new machine will help the business reduce lead times for deliveries and enhance quality, as Technipaq looks to take on additional business, he said.

The new pouch machine, along with the extra space for its smaller equipment, also should allow Technipaq to produce more preformed pouches.

“It gave us the capability and flexibility to run larger pouch volume, so we can make larger products,” Beckman said.

With all the business activity lately at Technipaq, Rosenburg, who helped orchestra the two recent investments at the company, had to pause and think whether Technipaq will soon add a third building to handle the increased workload.

“Probably sooner rather than later,” Rosenburg said with a laugh. “We are getting tight on space again.”