Dymax Corp., headquartered on Industrial Lane, has boosted its workforce and expanded from two to three shifts since mid-March, when the cases of coronavirus in the U.S. started to mushroom.
Dymax produces adhesives and coatings that bond metals, glass and plastics in devices such as syringes, ventilators, respiratory support masks and breathing tubes, among others.
The company works with customers in the aerospace, automotive, defense and consumer electronics industries, but orders to its medical division have grown rapidly over the past month.
In response, Dymax has hired 14 new employees, both temporary and permanent, since mid-March and has another two dozen positions it wants to fill, ranging from production operators to research and development technicians to product managers.
Previously running two shifts on a five-day work week, the company has increased to three shifts on a six-day week, according to Taylor Pepin, human resources administrator.
Founded in 1980 by Andrew Bachmann, Dymax is privately owned and operated by his son, Greg, the firm's president. It has approximately 250 employees in Torrington and also has facilities in Germany, Singapore, China and South Korea.
“Dymax has been working with medical device manufacturers for 40 years to develop formulations that overcome next-generation challenges such as plastics that have become increasingly difficult to bond to and miniaturization of parts,” said Michelle Evanoski, group product manager for Dymax.
In Torrington, Dymax has a research and development division that works on new formulas for its products and a manufacturing plant.
Its adhesives rapidly cure using ultraviolet or LED light. They are solvent-free and cure in seconds, which increases customers' output and moves products to market faster, Evanoski noted.
Dymax is not as large as some of its competitors, but that affords it the ability to respond quickly to customers’ needs, according to Beth Schivley, global director of marketing and communications.
“Our team of application engineers not only recommends solutions, but works with customers through material selection and manufacturing,” Schivley said.
Dymax works with a wide range of customers around the globe from large manufacturers to small startups, but the names of those companies are a highly guarded secret that many employees don’t even know, she added.
Article originally published by the Republican American.