Member Article

North East plastics firms are stronger together

The successful merger of two North East manufacturing companies will see the creation of jobs, investment in new technology and a move into larger premises in order to meet increased customer demand.

The Omega Group has been formed from the partnership between Blyth and Hartlepool based Omega Plastics and Washington’s Signal Plastics.

As a result of the merger, the expanded company is projected to turnover in excess of £9m in 2016 and headcount is scheduled to rise from 80 to more than 100 across the three sites. Omega Plastics and Signal Plastics will retain their individual trading names and each will continue to provide their existing customers with rapid and production tooling and plastic injection moulding services.

Omega Group will be led by Dave Crone, group managing director; Gary Powner, Omega Plastics managing director; Alan Franklin, Signal Plastics managing director and Julian Jamieson, operations director at Signal.

Commenting on the merger, Dave Crone said: “Both of our businesses had proved successful in their respective markets but there were sufficient complementary overlaps in our products and processes to make a strategic alliance of the two almost inevitable. Omega Plastics will continue to provide first class design, tooling, moulding and assembly with the added benefit of specialist high volume moulding provided by Signal Plastics.

“This combination of our resources and expertise means Omega and Signal are now even stronger together.”

Omega Plastics was formed in 2006 and was originally based at Team Valley, Gateshead. In 2007 the company moved into the purpose built 10,000sq ft factory in Blyth that it retains today. Five years later and in order to increase production capacity Omega opened a second 10,000sq ft facility in Hartlepool.

Since its launch in 2007, Signal Plastics has moved three times into increasingly larger premises. In January 2016 the business will move to a new 42,000sq ft facility in Washington.

Alan Franklin, managing director of Signal Plastics said: “Like Omega Plastics, our business has experienced sustained growth in a relatively short period. The merger has provided the stability we need to complete our latest move to a much larger site and to make further investments in the plant and machinery that will increase our production capability. We’re also aiming to create more than 20 new jobs over the next year and together with our colleagues at Omega we will be sharing best practices and offering improved career development opportunities to our workforce.” The Omega Group will continue to provide bespoke rapid and production tooling products as well as plastic injection moulding to customers across a range of sectors including automotive, electronics, FMCG, medical, personal care and bio-tech.

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