EAST OHIO

It has been said that the plastics industry was born in Ohio and that the birthplace could well have been Guernsey County in East Ohio's Appalachian Region.

An early plastic injection molding facility came to the county in the 1930s, and that company spawned a number of others. The long lineage includes such companies as Fabri-Form, Aero Molded Plastics and Jonathan Bye (formerly Globe Plastics). Years ago, more plastic resin was processed in Guernsey County than any other place in Ohio.

The region is networked through the Eastern Ohio Development Alliance (EODA), a consortium of 15 Appalachian counties. The region supports a mix of industry as diverse as its topography -- from the steel mills, chemical plants and heavy equipment makers along the Ohio River, to the automotive, ceramics and consumer goods plants almost hidden in the hills, to the rolling countryside and Amish farms in the western part of the region. Plastics is a major industry group in East Ohio.

The common threads in the network are a large available labor force known for its work ethic, the lower operating costs that come in small towns and the quality-of-life factors that make a pleasant working environment.

Profile
of
Eastern
Ohio
Location: 15 Appalachian counties, including Columbiana, Holmes, Muskingum, Coshocton, Guernsey, Washington, Perry, Carroll, Jefferson, Harrison, Belmont, Tuscarawas, Monroe, Morgan, Noble
Transportation:
Road: I-77, I-70
Rail: Ohio Central
Air: Within one hour drive of Port Columbus, Cleveland Hopkins, Parkersburg (W. Va.) and Pittsburgh airports
Water: Ohio River
Major Employers: Colgate-Palmolive; ITT Automotive; Bliss-Salem; Chevron Chemical; 5Bs; General Electric.

Says Fabri-Form president John Knight: "We're blessed with an extraordinary degree of work ethic. The people come from a rural background -- not that many generations removed from an agrarian economy -- and they show real drive and commitment."

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Skilled craftsmen have made Fabri-Form a leading supplier of custom transport packaging.
Fabri-Form is the oldest (50 years) thick-sheet industrial thermoforming company in the country. It had a humble facility at the start -- a loft of a tavern, where in 1943 it made plastics with acrylics, which was the only thermoforming resin available at the time. (An early sales brochure promoted "27 Ways to Use Fabricated Plastics.") Because there were few players in the plastics industry at the time, Fabri-Form had to invent much of the processing equipment in common use today, such as the rotary thermoformer and the twin sheet thermoformer. Original products were hand-crafted canopies and visors for bombers in WWII.

Fabri-Form was also involved in developing early pressurized space suits. When John Glenn first orbited the earth in 1962 and reported the view was "tremendous," he was looking through a visor made in Fabri-form's facility.

When polyethylene came on the market in the early 1970s, the company tried it on pallets and packaging. This line evolved into the company's main product today -- custom transport packaging. Fabri-form is one of the foremost suppliers of large, returnable shipping trays for the automotive, food and appliance markets. Plastics News recently rated the company the seventh largest industrial thermoformer in the U.S.

"We're talking about a polyethylene tray that is really a piece of capital equipment," says Knight. "The trays last the product life cycle. This means a tremendous cost saving for industry over throw-away packaging like Styrofoam."

Fabri-Form took a risk putting all its eggs in the returnable packaging basket. "We hung our hat on some trends we expected to evolve in the 90s and they have," says Knight. "It's a fun time to be alive in thermoforming."

The company employs about 130 in Guernsey County.

Eastern Ohio companies cite excellent access to customers as one advantage. Another is abundant worker training options in the region, including Muskingum Area Technical College in nearby Zanesville, the four-year Muskingum College, Belmont Tech and a number of high school vocational systems.

The research resources at The University of Akron's College of Polymer Science and Polymer Engineering are close enough to be easily accessible by East Ohio's plastics industry.

The communities of East Ohio belie the back-woodsy image of Appalachia. Most of its companies use cutting-edge management techniques that keep the workforce sharp and the companies globally competitive.

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GenCorp Polymer Products in Tuscarawas County is one of many companies benefiting from the exceptional service provided by the Ohio Central short line railroad.

Colgate-Palmolive, for example, operates a world-renowned plant in Cambridge. The plant, which just benefited from a $40 million expansion, draws company executives from 75 countries to study the work team concepts used so successfully in the plant. The company makes liquid detergents, as well as the plastic bottles for the products.

It was cost factors that drew Bayform, a division of Canada-based Baymills Ltd., to Harrison County. The company built a 40,000-sq. ft. plant for production of patio and window screen assemblies with the support of city, county and state officials. "We looked at a number of locations in Ohio and other states before choosing Cadiz," says De Ray Cole, general manager. "We're committed to being the low-cost producer in our field, and the cost advantages at the Cadiz location help us achieve that goal."
Coshocton County
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ENGINEERED
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Fostoria