Muskego-based InPro Corp. plans to move its Decorative Surfaces operations from its Fountain Boulevard location in Menomonee Falls to newly leased facilities in the New Berlin Industrial Park.
All of the surfaces operations employees will retain their jobs in the 70,000-square-foot new plant at the intersection of Calhoun Road and West Rogers Drive.
The company said the move to the new site is intended to generate greater efficiencies.
InPro entered a six-year lease for the site. During the first six months of the new year, the new facility will be outfitted with state-of-the-art surfaces production, finishing and materials-handling equipment.
In the third quarter of 2008, InPro Decorative Surfaces will begin transferring the operations from Menomonee Falls to New Berlin. Completion of the transfer will occur toward the end of the fourth quarter of 2008.
InPro currently manufactures two lines of Decorative Surfaces products: Prism Solid Surface and Lippert Cultured Marble, both of which are used in kitchen and bathroom remodeling. InPro markets the products to both the commercial and residential construction sectors. Both lines were acquired in January 2007 from the former Lippert Corp.
"We are a company that prefers to control its operational destiny," said Glenn Kennedy InPro’s executive vice president of plant operations. "Since acquiring Lippert’s assets, we’ve taken this past year to gain insights on how to produce higher-quality surfaces goods. We toyed with outsourcing production both domestically and overseas. We have now gained a solid vision of how to structure for world-class, continuous-flow manufacturing to succeed in this industry. We’re in it for the long haul.
"Frankly, the old Lippert plant was well past its prime. The new facility in New Berlin will be outfitted with first-class equipment that will allow us to better control product quality and processes to maximize efficiencies. The new plant will give us the ability to boost production capacity by as much as 400 percent," Kennedy said.
InPro is a global leader in interior and exterior architectural products currently used in the health care, hospitality, education, government, marine and retail sectors.
