Extruflex North America LLC, a French-owned manufacturer of flexible PVC strips, sheet and transparent films, has started extrusion operations in Birmingham, Ala.

The move gives Paris-based Extruflex SAS extrusion operations in Europe, Asia and North America.

"Extruflex is very international. More so than anyone else in our niche. We have distributors in more than 75 countries," said Shane Solomon, managing director of Extruflex North America in Birmingham.

"We also have seven sales and distribution offices, in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Russia, Brazil, China and the USA. And pretty much no other competitor that we have is manufacturing in more than one country."

Extruflex started its North American operation in 2011 as a distribution center for North American and Central American customers. The company ships product to 13 countries from Alabama, Solomon said.

"Since the first day we started in 2011, the idea was always to manufacture in the USA eventually," Solomon said. That required growing the business to the point where it made economic sense to extrude locally, he said.

"With PVC extrusion, you need to have a certain level of volume before it becomes feasible to do it. You have to be able to run extruders 24 hours a day," Solomon said. "We had a goal, especially our team here in the United States, to grow the business to the point where we could justify the investment that we've now made in people, [and] equipment."

Extruflex produces flexible PVC strips and sheets used in flexible door and curtain products such as strip doors and high-speed rollup doors.

Solomon would not provide details about the plant's capacity, number of employees or investment.

"It was a seven-figure plus investment. And we've hired quite a few people over the last few months to staff up," Solomon said.

Extruflex primarily makes flexible PVC strips and sheet for door and curtain applications. These are typically between 4 inches and 48 inches wide, and used for area separation and temperature control.

"There's a need for this product across the globe," Solomon said. The company's original extrusion operation was in France, and it started manufacturing in China in 2003.

Solomon said the North American division has been the fastest-growing in the company.

"We hope to continue to grow, to increase our pace of growth. Now that we have a Made in USA product, it opens more possibilities for us, to grow in our current product niche and to expand in other flexible extruded products," Solomon said.

For the past month, Extruflex has had a team of workers from France in the Birmingham plant, helping train the local workers. The visitors will stay another month or two.

"They've been here to transfer their knowledge to our team. Our company has been making this product for more than 50 years," Solomon said. He added that the team from France has enjoyed sampling Southern food.

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