Wednesday, July 20, 2005
Regal gets grant to support new manufacturing
process
DURHAM — The New Hampshire Industrial Research Center
(NHIRC) at the University of New Hampshire has awarded a
second grant to Regal Sleeving and Tubing of Newmarket to help
support continued development of more efficient production
processes by researchers at the University of New
Hampshire.
Regal Sleeving and Tubing has been granted
$25,471 to support a $50,943 project at UNH. In June 2004,
Regal Sleeving and Tubing was granted $24,798 to support a
$49,597 project at UNH to begin the project.
"The
results of the first project have resulted in a 50 percent to
100 percent increase in the production process, and Regal has
increased the number of employees from 36 to 45," according to
Robert Dalton, executive director of the NHIRC.
A
60-year-old company in downtown Newmarket, the former Suflex
Sleeving and Tubing Company was saved from bankruptcy two
years ago after it was purchased by the plant's two managers.
Prior to the purchase, Suflex had been losing money, but with
help from the New Hampshire Manufacturing Extension Project
(NHMEP), the two employees acquired the company, renamed it
Regal Sleeving and Tubing, and turned it around. However, the
company's leased plant housed an outdated and cost-prohibitive
process for drying one of its key products, acrylic fiberglass
sleeving.
After the NHMEP contacted the NHIRC about
developing a new, more efficient and less costly chemical
formulation and drying process, the NHIRC contacted UNH
Professor P.T. Vasudevan in the Department of Chemical
Engineering, who had success working with a similar product a
few years ago.
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