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And how many molders have such an attitude toward what they do? Listen to John W. Hoskins, Octex president: "Quality is foun- dational; it's who you are. We get hundreds of millions of chances every year to affect some- one's life through the parts and tools we make. We play a noble role—helping save someone's life when they're sick or undergoing heart surgery, for example. Because we did what we're supposed to do. We strive to keep that feeling every day—it's the key to our brand." REMOLDING A MOLDING COMPANY Octex Group in Sarasota, Fla., started out as an injection molder in 1990, but today it is about a lot more than molding. It consists of three businesses with total revenues under $50 million: the Octex molding business (octex360.com), moldmaker Choice Tool & Mold (choicetool.com), and metrology services provider Omnia Scientific (omniascientific.com). The transformation started four or five years ago, in a series of conversations between Octex CEO Jim Westman, who bought the molding company in 2009, and Hoskins, who had 30 years' experience in plastics injection molding, extrusion, and thermoforming. He "grew up in plastics," in a family business that started in 1918 to make buggy awnings and got into plastics in the 1950s. He sold that business in 2000 and went on to senior positions in consulting and managing other molding, moldmaking, and plastics materials companies. Hoskins joined Octex in 2014 as executive v.p. and became president last June. He and Westman began to implement the plans they had discussed on how to change the company, which served mostly consumer and industrial customers, to one focused on medical, aerospace, and defense industries. But they had even bigger ambitions, as Hoskins puts it, "to push the edges of technology, move the market forward, do what others can't do or won't do." Just four years later, Octex Group's business is about 75% medical/pharmaceutical devices and disposables, 1-2% aerospace/defense, and 23% consumer/industrial. This business transforma- tion resulted from a thorough overhaul of the firm's physical plant and equipment, and injection of a whole new culture. Over the last five years, Octex invested more than $10 million in numerous upgrades and additions. It acquired a 20-year-old mold- maker, Choice Tool & Mold of Largo, Fla., and relocated it to a 15,000- ft 2 former storage building on Octex's 10-acre grounds in Sarasota. Octex renovated the building and upgraded the tooling operation with state-of-the-art equipment (details below). In addition, Octex purchased a top-of-the-line CT scanner and other sophisticated metrology equipment for what became Omnia Scientific. Octex also made major investments in IT systems, ERP systems, and a central supercomputer data hub. And the last eight months have seen a total renovation of the main building (70,000 ft 2 ) with new floors, LED lighting, and major expansion of clean-room and white-room areas. Noting the shiny new floors throughout the molding areas, Hoskins says, "The whole place looks like a big operating room." In fact, the whole 30,000-ft 2 manufacturing area in the main building has been upgraded in terms of cleanliness. The former 4000-ft 2 Class 8 clean room has been expanded to 5000-6000 ft 2 (containing five injection presses), while the rest of the building's manufacturing area is a Class 8 white room. They have the same air quality, except that the white-room area lacks HEPA filtration and positive air pressure. But all areas are operated under the same FDA GMP standards—e.g., gowns, caps, and measuring particulate "We don't 'think outside the box'— there is no box." Octex has spent at least $2 million on upgraded facilities, including this expanded main clean room, 6000 ft 2 , Class 8, containing five presses (including two of KraussMaffei's new CX series), with room for two more. Molding areas outside the clean room are white rooms, held to the same GMP standards. White Room 1, shown here, is convertible to a clean room. It contains a Wittmann Battenfeld MicroPower 15-ton micromolder, the first step into a new business area for Octex. @plastechmag 57 Plastics Technology On-Site Octex Group