HCP opens a third China cosmetics packaging plant

Designer and manufacturer of cosmetics packaging, HCP has opened a fourth factory, its third in China. The company has a mascara factory in Hinsdale in the US but is headquartered at its Shanghai facility and also has a factory in Suzhou. The new factory is based in Huai’an, three hours north of Shanghai.

Total investment in the project is US$45,000 over three years. The site occupies a land area of 175,259m2 and includes a 30,000m2 building. The 400 employees working at the site are trained at the company’s Suzhou and Shanghai plants. The site will focus on the production of injection moulded products such as jars, lipsticks, compacts and closures for the mass market and capabilities will ultimately include metal pressing and electroplating. HCP says the existing machines are aligned to have automated, added value finishing which will include hot stamping, silk screening and assembly processes. And other in-house facilities include master batch production and mirror cutting. There is also a vacuum metallising chamber and a spray line.

So far 36 state of the art injection machines have been installed and a further 24 will be installed by the beginning of December 2008.

Moving on to stage two of the site’s development, a further 60 injection machines will be installed along with six injection blow moulding machines and a further six spray lines and another vacuum metallization system for non-heavy metals will be added. A metal pressing and an on-site anodising system will be incorporated for the production and treatment of metal parts.

The factory is due to be fully complete by December 2009, by which time the company will have increased its workforce to 550.