With orders up sizably in recent years, Guangdong Yizumi Precision Machinery Co. Ltd. has announced plans to expand its annual production capacity to 4 billion yuan ($630 million).
"Our annual target is to grow 25 percent globally in our injection-molding machine sales," James Zhang, general manager of Injection Molding Machine Division, told reporters at a pre-Chinaplas press conference April 22 in Shanghai.
Construction has begun on a 57,000 square meter expansion of its plant in Wusha, near corporate headquarters in Shunde, Guangdong province.
Wusha's 23,000 square meter first phase began production in 2016. Currently, it makes electric injection-molding machines and high-speed packaging systems, which include both machines and molds.
Yizumi said it's steadily ramping up production. Currently, Wusha can make at least 30 high-speed packaging systems a month. By year's end, that monthly capacity will reach 40 systems.
When Phase 2 is completed next year, the company estimates production capacity of the entire Wusha plant will be about 2.2 billion Chinese yuan ($350 million).
At that time, production of rubber injection-molding machines will be moved to this plant from Yizumi's 80,000 square meter factory in the Gaoli neighborhood of Shunde, the site of Yizumi's headquarters.
In other production news, Yizumi plans to move manufacturing of its two-platen machines to its 33,000-square-meter Wujiang district, Suzhou, factory by mid-year.
When the move is complete, Wujiang will be able to manufacture 500 million yuan ($79 million) worth two-platen machines and 200 million yuan ($32 million) in robotic equipment annually.
Elsewhere in the world, Yizumi said it plans to annually produce 200 to 250 injection-molding machines at its 8,775-square-meter facility in Ahmedabad, India, which began operation last June.
Next year, Yizumi plans to open a 20,000 square meter R&D center in Wusha. Last year, the company opened a modest technical research center at RWTH University in Aachen, Germany, site of the prestigious Institute of Plastics Processing (IKV).
In 2016, Yizumi said it invested 81.5 million yuan ($12.9 million) in R&D.
Also at Chinaplas, Yizumi announced that it has invested in Prince & Weiss's Environmental Plastic Innovation Center in Eupen, Belgium.
Key export markets are Turkey, South Korea and Southeast Asia. But the company has grand plans for the North American market.
In late 2017, its U.S. subsidiary Yizumi-HPM Corp. opened a 23,000 square meter, $1.8 million headquarters in Iberia, Ohio. The facility supports technical sales and service.
Yizumi-HPM has 20 full-time staff, including four engineers.
The subsidiary's sales leaped 114 percent last year, the company says.
Founded in 2002, Yizumi went public in 2015. Its shares are listed on the Shenzhen and Shanghai exchanges. The company also makes die-casting and rubber-injection machines.
