LS Mtron hosts largest injection molding booth at NPE 2024

Korean upstart soars from limited market presence to Top 10 IMM supplier

At NPE 2018, South Korea’s LS Mtron was relatively unknown to the North American plastics industry. While the company was a leading player in the global IMM market, in the US they were known mostly as an upstart injection molding machine provider born as a spinoff of the LG Group, just starting to establish its presence in the plastics industry.

At the 2018 show, the company announced that Daiichi Jitsugyo America (DJA) of Wood Dale, IL, the distributor for Niigata injection molding machines, would begin distributing LS Mtron in the United States. Three years later, LS Mtron acquired DJA and established their own presence in the U.S., with DJA’s Peter Gardner becoming President. Soon after, industry veteran Paul Caprio joined the company as President-Sales, and it quickly became apparent with additional key hires that LS Mtron was serious about growth.

At this year’s NPE 2024, LS Mtron is making a major statement: The company boasts the largest booth space, 13,500 square feet, devoted solely to IMMs. Thanks to exponential growth over the past six years, the company, now one of the Top 10 IMM suppliers worldwide — and its massive presence at NPE 2024 will serve as a splashy springboard for its further North American growth plans.

LS Mtron has more than 2,000 machines installed in North America, primarily for automotive production, as well as appliances, electronics and logistics packaging. Many of those machines already in North America are in LG and LS Company plants, as well as many other Korean transplants, but the company continues to increase machine sales to the overall injection molding industry. Leading global brands relying on LS Mtron equipment include Hyundai, Kia, Ford, GM, Tesla, Toyota, Honda, Nissan, VW, LG, Samsung, Visteon, Delphi, Mahle, Parker Hannifin, US Merchants, Quantum Storage, Luxit Automotive Lighting, Integrity Mold, Tessy, LG Chem, LG Appliances and many others.

To more promptly and efficiently serve customers in the U.S. and Mexico, LS Mtron employs service personnel and stocks parts regionally to more quickly and efficiently support customers. In the U.S., the company has four facilities: headquarters in Duluth, Georgia; technical centers in Duluth, Brownsville, Texas, and Wood Dale, Illinois; and a parts warehouse in San Diego.

Meanwhile, LS Mtron Mexico just opened, with headquarters in Monterrey and service offices in Queretaro and Tijuana.

LS Mtron’s current success is a far cry from the company’s origins in the LG Group, from which emerged the LS Group in 2003. LS Mtron was officially established by the LS Group in 2008, but its origin dates to 1969 when LG — known as Lucky Goldstar until 1995 — began building IMMs under license from Toshiba to supply LG companies. Owned by the Koo family, LS is one of Korea’s largest companies. LS has more than 25,000 employees and over $30 billion in sales.

As LG’s range of products — spanning energy equipment and automation to electrical cables and tractors — grew among its dozens of subsidiaries, it started building its own molding machines. Now, LS Mtron has the capacity to build about 3,000 IMMs annually and is the only machine builder that is a molder itself for automotive, electric, and other parts at many of the LS-owned companies, as well as appliance and electronic parts for their closely related founding company, LG.

“We have delivered almost 1,500 machines for our founding company and best customer, LG’s production over the last 10 years,” said Gardner. “This close relationship provides us great feedback to give to our R&D team to make the best production equipment.”

LS keeps pace with smart manufacturing trends by using state-of-the-art design and production practices to supply intelligent machines that help customers take advantage of all the digitally based advantages Industry 4.0 has to offer. Furthermore, the sheer breadth of the LS universe provides LS Mtron a wealth of operational efficiencies, Gardner added.

“LS owns or uses many companies within the same ownership to achieve great delivery times and pricing. For instance: We own the casting company, we own the shipping company, we own the servo drive company, and we own the electric component company.”

Visit LS Mtron at booth w1101 at NPE 2024. For more information about LS Mtron and its molding machines, visit www.lsinjectionusa.com or call 800-843-1672.

About LS Mtron injection molding machines

LS Mtron is part of the LS Group, a South Korean-based conglomerate with over 25,000 employees, annual revenues of over $30 billion and profit of approximately $1 billion. LS Mtron Injection Molding Machines (LS IMM), a division of LS Mtron, was started in 1969 by South Korean tech giant LG Corporation, one of the world’s largest plastic molders. Founded initially to satisfy their own production needs for injection molded components used in their world-famous TVs, appliances, electronics, and other products, today LS IMM produces around 3,000 machines per year, not only for use by our network of LS-related and LG-founded companies but also for thousands of molders around the world.

Beginning with the development of Korea’s first injection molding machines, LS IMM prides itself on quality, service and fast deliveries. The combined strength of the LS family of companies allows us to solve many of the world’s supply-chain challenges.

Because of this, LS IMM can provide new custom molding machines to our customers in North America in just 100 days from casting to cargo, or even faster from our stocked inventory.

* source : https://www.plasticsnews.com/sponsored-content/ls-mtron-hosts-largest-injection-molding-booth-npe-2024