The Teijin Group's Continental Structural Plastics Corporation announced that it will install a sheet molding compound (SMC) line at its plant in Pouance, France, to meet its industrial compounding formulations in Europe. CSP will invest about 5.1 million euros ($6 million) to build an SMC production line.
CSP is a large-scale composites manufacturer for SMC in North America, with an annual SMC production of over 84,000 US tons. The installation of this SMC line in France will be used to further develop the company's wide range of proprietary, advanced composite products, including low volatile organic compound (VOC) formulations currently under development to meet European market regulations. The line will be able to produce SMC made of fiberglass and carbon fiber.
“The addition of this SMC line to the Pouance plant is an important step in our European growth plan,” said Philippe Bonte, President of CSP Europe. “This will enable us to provide a full range of services to our customers and provide us with opportunities to further strengthen our material development work in Europe.”
Teijin Group is using its lightweight, powerful, high-performance materials and integrated composite technology as one of the focus of the Group's mid-term management plan transformation strategy. The group's goal is to expand its business to become a multi-material component supplier.
The CSP Pouance facility is an innovative, fast lightweight technology development center that includes carbon fiber resin transfer molding (RTM), Class A RTM and thermoplastic composites. CSP purchased 12,000 square meters (130,000 square feet) of facilities in 2013.
It is expected that by the third quarter of 2019, the SMC production line will be commercially ready to produce SMC.
