By Michael Lauzon
CORRESPONDENT
Published: September 18, 2014 11:56 am ET
Updated: September 18, 2014 11:59 am ET

Image By: Nolato Medical
Nolato Contour's clean room in Baldwin, Wis.

Nolato Medical has extended its controlled environment options to include a white room at its Baldwin, Wis., Nolato Contour plant.

Nolato Medical said the white room, at more than 20,000 square feet, is its largest injection molding area and houses presses from 40 to 400 tons. Presses in the space allow two-shot molding and semi-automated operations.

The firm said the white room is an economically viable option for molding jobs that do not need a more restrictive environment such as the Class 10,000 and 100,000 clean rooms Nolato Medical already offers in Baldwin. The white room allows general molding but is mainly oriented to certain medical customers. Controls for the space include consistent security and requirements for staff to wear hairnets and gowns.

“We needed all manufacturing environments to be controlled, regardless of whether they are clean rooms,” explained Nolato Medical operations manager Curt Schwalen in a news release. “This is a requirement from some medical device customers because all medical device work requires good process controls.”

The Baldwin site added three new multi-shot injection presses during the summer to take on new medical molding business. Nolato Medical specializes in molding thermoplastics, thermoplastic elastomers and silicones. Nolato Contour was created in 2010 when Nolato AB of Torekov, Sweden, bought Baldwin-based Contour Plastics Inc.