EAM-Mosca drives technological advances in its own field and beyond

Apr. 30—HAZLE TWP. — EAM-Mosca Corporation focuses on one specific area of industry — automated end-of-line packaging solutions.

You know those recyclable plastic straps you find around that new TV you just purchased, around a fresh bundle of newspapers at the local convenience store or a majority of the corrugated boxes that ultimately get shipped to your door by Amazon along with a host of other places. Chances are they were made by EAM-Mosca and placed there by one of its machines.

Ensuring uptime for customers in their end-of-line packaging processes is the primary focus and key differentiator of the company. That customer focus has led the company to become not only a leader in its field, but also the recognized driver of technological advances.

"We are innovation leader in that regard," said Christian W. Wiethuechter, the company's President and Chief Executive Officer. "We've always been very much focused as a niche player. So not a jack of all trades, master of none, but rather the leader in exactly what we offer."

Nowhere is that more evident than the company's expanding campus in Hazle Township.

Much of its main facility is filled with extrusion equipment to turn recycled material into strapping, making the process as environmentally friendly as possible. The rest is filled with the machines that automatically place the straps where they are supposed to go and oem replacement parts.

The company is about to hold a ribbon cutting on a second building adjacent to its original facility. The new building will host offices, a customer showroom and a "machinery center of excellence," according to Wiethuechter. Some parts of the building are already being used even though the ribbon cutting isn't scheduled until next month.

"It's not an isolated case," Wiethuechter said of the expansion. "If we look at the last five years, we've invested more than $50 million here in Pennsylvania actually to grow ourselves, to serve the market. But this is now a $20 million strategic initiative that we've embarked on."

The company began in the U.S. in 1982 in Long Island. It's parent company dates back to 1966 and is headquartered in Germany. EAM-Mosca moved from Long Island to Hazle Township in 1988 with Hazle Township becoming the headquarters for the entire Americas.

"We're still closely held as a family company, but really over the last three to five years, you could say we've had our largest growth spurt in our history," said Jan Wessel, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. "And that's largely been driven of course by the industrial need for automation."

And, of course, at the center of that automation is the application of those plastic straps.

"The leading innovative technology is in the sealing of the plastic strap," said John D'Ottavio, the company's Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. "What Mosca Group is known for throughout the world is leading edge technology in sealing and specifically ultrasonic sealing.

"Our ultrasonic technology, known as SoniXs, is the top, the premium in the market."

But make no mistake, the company is more than just a plastic strap manufacturer.

"We're a system provider," Wessel said. "That's the important part, not just being a plastics company or machinery company. We provide the solution, which is where we position ourselves with our customer base."

A customer base that apparently is very pleased with the company.

"We have managed to build a very successful business model in targeted markets," Wiethuechter said. "It used to be printing, now it's corrugated (cardboard) along with some others. But I think one thing that is really important to say about EAM-Mosca is customer centricity, focusing on what customers need. We are small enough to do that, to listen to the customers and to develop things to the degree they really need. So this business model is the combination of the machine, the consumable and also the service.

"We basically sell uptime performance to our customers."

That has allowed the company to grow to the point its expanded beyond the United States' borders with operations in Canada, Mexico and Brazil, employing more than 350 talented people in the Americas region.

"We can expand that same business model to other industries. We can expand our product portfolio in some areas where we are not so strong today. And we can also expand regionally. We are very successful in the U.S., but there's Canada, there's Mexico, where we can grow more. There is the rest of South America. So the idea really is to take this very successful system approach that we have and grow in the areas where we don't have this full total system sale yet realized as, for example, in the corrugated market. And there are significant growth possibilities in the next five to 10 years."

Along with that growth will come further innovation, of course.

The company continues to search for ways to make their process more environmentally friendly and increasing automation.

"Where we see an important development into the future is really digitalization," Wiethuechter said. "It's where our machines become smarter and are able to tell us when they are sick, when they need service. ... where they interconnect to other equipment and can optimize.