DALTON—While others downsize or worse, Mapei continues expanding. The company has recently acquired an additional 80,500 square-foot building on 5.2 acres of property located here. The new facility is located within a mile of the company’s APAC adhesives production plant, which Mapei purchased in April of last year (FCNews, April 20/27).
“The availability of raw materials makes the location ideal for our purposes; we’ll begin retrofitting the plant to produce Mapei powdered products right away,” said Ray Knecht, Mapei unit manager, Dalton operations. “In the meantime, we’ll start using the plant space immediately as a regional distribution center for products from our tile and stone installation systems and concrete restoration systems. We’ll give our customers in the Southeast improved service while saving in shipping times.”
The property at 2308 Dalton Industrial Court will serve another pur- pose for Mapei. “We’ve begun to set up a Center of Excellence for adhesives research,” said Neil McMurdie, director of research/development, Mapei Americas. “Our senior group leader for the adhesive laboratory in Deerfield Beach, Fla., Jose Piedra, will be relocating to the Dalton facility to carry on research with Mapei’s ultra-low-VOC adhesives in the Ultrabond ECO line. We’re also expand- ing our research into next-generation pressure-sensitive adhesives and acrylic specialty systems for the OEM market- place.”
In step with Mapei’s commitment to training, the new site will also include state-of-the-art training facilities with both classroom space and hands-on work- shop areas. Jeff Johnson, product manager, said Mapei had not held training programs in Dalton before, “but there will be a Mapei Technical Institute (MTI) branch in the new facility. We’re very excited this facility will also house our Center for Excellence in adhesives research.
“We also have Centers for Excellence in other areas of research in the Americas,” he added, including urethane adhesives research at the facility in Garland, Tex.; powders (tile and stone installation systems) research at the headquarters in Deerfield Beach, Fla., and concrete restoration systems research in Laval, Quebec. “Of course, all our research facilities are guided by our parent facility in Milan, Italy. We feel that the new Dalton facility will also give us a major warehousing footprint for the southeast U.S. market and potential OEM customers in the area.”
Lastly, Mapei has acquired a production plant in Ruse, Bulgaria. The 150,000-plus square foot facility is located near the Bulgarian/Romanian border, and will be dedicated to the production of tile adhesives and thermal insulation systems.
For more, call 800.426.2734.