After a quarter of a century, Mid-America Plastics has developed a reputation of being a consistent, efficient plastics fabrication and machining operation offering high-quality end-products. Mid-America Plastics offers custom fabrication, precision CNC machining and packaging in its Class 1000 Clean Room.

Formed as a dual ownership in 1973, co-owners Dean Swanson and Tom Stepan began Mid-America Plastics after working together at a chemical company which fabricated vertical etching machines. Since that time, Mid-America Plastics has tapped into several different industries while keeping a strong hold on the semi-conductor industry. Known for being a sporadic industry, the turbulent semi-conductor market allows Mid-America Plastics to utilize other interests including their two sister companies.

Components are installed on one of two micro processor cabinets for FSI. These detailed cabinets each take four days to fabricate.

Semi-Conductor Industry

Mid-America Plastics builds cabinetry for the semiconductor industry to house microprocessors, surface finishing machines and chemical transfer cabinetry involving a lot of different processes. Most of its work is within an umbrella of the semi-conductor industry, for companies such as FSI, Hutchison, and Flouroware.

"Since our relationship with FSI began in 1980, they have grown to become our largest customer," says Jeff Gjerdingen, vice president of operations at Mid-America Plastics. "The list of cabinetry that we have made for FSI has grown to over 3,500 different pieces."

Mid-America Plastics manufacturing facility shows a commitment to an efficient, well-run fabrication business with exceptional cleanliness, orderliness and high-production capabilities. Mid-America Plastics employees (20 fabricators, 15 machinists and 10 sales/office personnel) show the same type of dedication to Mid-America Plastics as Mid-America Plastics returns to its customers. More than 70 percent of the employees have worked there for over 10 years, which Gjerdingen says makes a big difference.

"Nobody can match us when it comes to our fabricating abilities, high-end machining capabilities, quality control room and state-of-the art equipment," says Gjerdingen. "Our employees are the main reason for that and the semi-conductor industry was the best way for us to advance,"

The list of Mid-America Plastics machines includes: two Komo CNC machining centers, two Fadal VMC machining centers, Kasuga and Coment CNC milling machines, two Supermax and one Republic-Lagun vertical milling machines as well as a Republic-Lagun FTV-2 with Acu-Rite D.R.O. and a Sharp LMV with Acu-Rite D.R.O.

"The semi-conductor industry demands a lot of specialty, precision machining where other industries do not," says Gjerdingen. "We are just utilizing our specialty for fabricating."

According to Gjerdingen, the semi-conductor industry has gone to FM4910 rated materials, the latest and most stringent rating in plastics for specifications that need to be met, including smoke/flame ratings for clean room environments.

"There is a learning curve on materials," says Gjerdingen. "Some of these materials come out and look as if they are going to take the world by storm and then they die out. It is a fast changing industry with fast-changing materials. Being able to adjust to these changes and stay ahead of the game is a must."

The semi-conductor industry demands precision machining and a clean room environment. "We were able to be set apart from other shops due to our clean shop and experienced fabricators," says Gjerdingen. "The industry demands near perfection, so to be successful that is what you have to be &emdash; perfect."

"This industry is a lot of fun," Gjerdingen adds. "The most exciting part of this industry is working on new, high-tech equipment which helps keep our company on the leading edge and at the same time working with companies that are on the leading edge.

"The semi-conductor industry is extremely cyclical. It can be a totally wild industry but then it will bottom out &emdash; very up and down," explains Gjerdingen. "We must gear up for peak demands but be prepared to fall back on our other types of work during downtimes."

Flo-America and Industrial Plastics Inc. Form Mid-America Plastics' Triple Threat In The Twin Cities About 15 years ago, the plastic plumbing industry was growing leaps and bounds as the industry was switching from mild steel and copper to plumbing valves and fittings made of plastic. During that time, Mid-America Plastics built a resale business involving plumbing valves, fittings, etc. Once the company made its latest expansion, a decision was made to branch that part of the company off on its own. In 1995, Industrial Plastics Inc. began operation in Bloomington, MN, handling all of the resale of plastic plumbing fittings and valves, a business that was bringing in $3 million a year for Mid-America Plastics. "It was pointing that way for a long time due to the growth of our business," says Jeff Gjerdingen, vice president of operations at Mid-America Plastics. "Because the competition is so fierce, it is a difficult business to be successful in, but it's something that we do well. We seemed to have a knack for it and we kept very busy, but we wanted to keep a focus within Mid-America Plastics and that part of the business was definitely holding its own before the change." Mid-America Plastics can utilize Industrial Plastics when customers need a valve, fitting, pump or tank, making it easy for the customer. "Customers want that 'one-stop' buying power," says Gjerdingen. Mid-America Plastics other sister company since the latter part of 1998 is Flo America. Complementing Mid-America Plastics in the semi-conductor industry, Flo-America is focused in water purity systems which factors into the mix with both Mid-America Plastics and Industrial Plastics. It manufactures plumbing fittings and cabinetry for cleaning systems and specializes in UL-rated wiring, robotics and movements of fluid as well as designing custom type systems. "This combination with Flo was perfect. We needed to take our product line a step further in that area and offer the customer a complete product," says Gjerdingen. "Flo offers a lot of synergy in connection with the two other companies." "Mid-America Plastics fabricates cabinetry and machines parts which fit with what we need perfectly," says Troy Hanson, fluid specialist with Flo America. "They need valves, pumps, mixers and they can utilize our other sister company, Industrial Plastics. It allows all three companies to work together to offer to our customers a more complete product from the same company &emdash; a turn key system. We don't just offer them the cabinets or the valves or the idea, we offer the complete system." "Industrial Plastic's primary function continues to be selling pumps, molded tanks and fittings and our primary function is the fabricating and machining and selling of our fabricating and machining expertise, says Gjerdingen." --Chad Sypkens

Fabrication Companies Forte

"Mid-America Plastics didn't offer any machining of plastic in the early years," says Gjerdingen. "but we realized more and more people were switching to plastic for longer lasting products. When we saw this coming, we adjusted our work to meet more of the needs of what customers wanted. If they needed a piece of PVC machined or fabricated, we did it."

That made Mid-America Plastics services practically unlimited. Mostly working with PVC, Mid-America Plastics was fabricating everything &emdash; plating tanks, cabinetry, sinks and wetbenches. Today, 95 percent of its plating tanks are made from polypropylene for greater durability.

The plating tanks and the ventilation system industries are key to Mid-America Plastics success because they are not as volatile as the semi-conductor industry. "They help us through the lulls even though it isn't the primary focus of our company."

Plating tanks are used for anodizing and chrome plating for the automotive and decorative aluminum, extrusion trim industry. Companies use the tanks to hold chemicals in order to dip metal pieces in to become chrome-plated. Examples include bumpers and trim panels.

Along with the introduction to machining and the addition of newer equipment, Mid-America Plastics expansion has enabled the company to handle a broad array of applications. After remaining in a 2,500-square-foot warehouse space in Richfield, MN, for the first five years, Mid-America Plastics moved its operations to Shakopee, MN, increasing its size to 15,000-square-feet in 1978. A final move 500 feet away in 1984 doubled its size to what is now Mid-America Plastics 30,000 square-foot, state-of-the-art facility. Another expansion in 1995 doubled the size of their machining and fabrication operations.

"Our machine shop has been here 15 years (since 1984). We have grown it into a complete machine shop with huge automatic lathes and CNC routers which has enabled us to machine our processes with fewer setups which will in turn save time and money for the customer," Gjerdingen says.

Mid-America has a central programming room which houses their Mastercam CNC Programming System for programming all their CNC machines. The system allows machining to be done in an efficient way, meeting close tolerances that the industry demands.

Mid-America Plastics small part or large plastic panel processing is done in one setup. Turning capabilities range from small manual Hardinges chucks to large Milltronics and Emcoturn CNC lathes. It is not uncommon for Mid-America Plastics to have 25-40 projects going on at any one time.

Mid-America Plastics fabrication facilities are supported by equipment including Wegener automatic butt welding machines for virtually unlimited welding capacity, machines for flame polishing acrylics, panel saws for high-production cutting of parts and precision high-speed Komo machining centers.

"To be able to have a complete state-of-the-art machine shop in conjunction with our fabrication capabilities is really what sets us apart from other machine shops," says Gjerdingen. "High-tech is where we needed to go. To get there and be on the leading edge, you initially have a major equipment cost. But you need that type of equipment to be competitive in a large market, and to be successful."

Equipment additions have paved the way for Mid-America Plastics to work on many unique projects. "We custom machine lenses using a CNC lathe for 3M health care, made of special-coated, exotic PC acrylic which is only available from Japan. We have probably made several thousand of these lenses over the last five years which are used on health equipment and have LEDs or gauges behind them covering lights and monitors. This is high-quality, scratch-resistant acrylic with a certain clarity rating and hardness that is very uncommon."

Mid-America Plastics also does machining for the medical industry with companies like Medtronics and SciMed Life Systems. Mostly machining prototypes parts for machines, Mid-America Plastics also machines fixtures, trays and different items for catheters and other intrusive medical angioplasties items for Schnider.

"These materials require aesthetic, highly oriented work and tight tolerances that demand the best of what we have to offer to the customer," says Gjerdingen.

Although a lot of Mid-America Plastics customers do not need this type of classification, a Class 1000 Clean Room is a value-added service that they offers to customers.

"Since 1986, we have been focused on the semi-conductor industry, that is part of our drive," says Gjerdingen. "The equipment has to be extremely clean and particulate-free to manufacture chips. That process starts with the cabinetry. The leaders of this company were drawn by the semi-conductor industry and were willing to take on the aspect of working in a clean room environment."

The cabinetry has to be made in as close to a clean room environment as possible to keep dust factors and outside factors out of the picture. "The final product goes into our Class 1000 clean room for final packaging, labeling and bagging before it goes to our customer," Gjerdingen says.

Early on, Mid-America Plastics dealt with a lot of PVC, then branched off into polypropylene and polyethylene, both low density, high purity and flame retardant materials. It has recently added many other plastics as well. High-temperature, static-controlled plastics like high purity Teflon, Halar, PVDF and CPVC are all used to make high purity tanks and wet benches.

"We use PVDF and teflon regularly for many projects, but we have had a long-standing problem of getting virgin teflon in here without any inclusions. Often during the extrusion process, burnt materials or blackened materials will sometimes fall into the extruded material," explains Gjerdingen. "When machining the material, you come upon these black specs called inclusions. We recently found a new Japanese teflon that offers extremely high-purity with very few inclusions in it.

"We must be very concerned about that type of thing in dealing with static applications because a $1million chip could be ruined if guidelines aren't met. We can't take that chance. Microchips are in more and more items now than ever before &emdash; greeting cards, for example, now carry chips. We are gearing ourselves toward equipment manufacturing to keep up with just that type of thing."

For that reason, Mid-America Plastics doesn't use any cutting oils or metal in its facility. All cutting and machining is done with water and primarily air. "We always outsource our metal work because we can't take the chance of the smallest piece of metal getting into the plastic," says Gjerdingen. "If it did, we would have major problems. All of the parts would have to be scrapped."

A wetbench or laboratory process bench, is typically an 8-foot long bench with possibly anywhere from two to eight small tanks within. These tanks may have anywhere from one or a combination of all of the following: a cascade rinse, faucet, heater, agitator or bubbler. Companies will run a number of miniature processes through the tanks depending on how each wetbench is to be utilized.

"We have machined and fabricated wetbenches, typically out of white polypropylene, for Medtronics and SCIMED," says Gjerdingen. "They may take 40 to 50 hours of fabricating and machining work each. They can be quite involved."

Mid-America Plastics recently completed a series of wet benches in two separate clean rooms. The two rooms include 21 benches which are used to package chemicals for a chemical company.

An additional large project completed by Mid-America Plastics was for Nico Plating, which was expanding its plating shop. The project involved the fabrication of four 30,000 cfm fume scrubbers, more than 1,000 feet of duct work and hundreds of hoods for the plating tanks.

Nico's plant expansion required Mid-America Plastics to work with the city of Minneapolis in designing the expansion project so that city standards were met as well.

"To meet everybody's needs for air quality inside the shop as well as that which is sent out into the atmosphere, we had to satisfy the needs of both," says Gjerdingen. "We helped find an environmentalist and worked in conjunction with him to make sure we met all the standards. We helped in the layout of the building and assisted them in their need for extraction of fumes.

"Each city has a different set of codes and requirements and we have to work intensely with the city and the company to make sure we are going to satisfy everyone's needs. Each job will bring something different to the table and it is a continual learning process. With the codes of each city and the requirements of different fire inspectors, there are different things brought to the table each time, different design requirements each time, so each project is very unique which keeps it very involved," he says.

That involvement and dedication is part of what keeps Mid-America Plastics at the top of the electronics industry.

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Plastics Machining & Fabricating
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