[ISKANDAR PUTERI] United States-based medical packaging company Oliver Healthcare Packaging on Thursday (May 15) opened a 120,000 square foot (sq ft) manufacturing facility within the Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone in Malaysia.
The facility, its largest plant in the region, will produce medical-grade packaging such as pouches, lids and roll stock, the group said in a statement.
The opening was officiated by Lee Ting Han, chair of the Johor State Investment, Trade, Consumer Affairs and Human Resources Committee.
The plant is already operational, but has not reached full capacity yet. Oliver’s president and chief executive Michael Benevento estimates that by the end of 2026, the plant should reach a 20 per cent utilisation of equipment and employ 50 employees.
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“We have room to build another clean room that’s almost as big as the one that is presently here, plus a lot of warehouse space, so a huge amount of expansion is possible,” he said in a media briefing at the opening.
Resilient supply chain
The facility is part of the group’s drive to “minimise supply chain hops over oceans” for their customers in the Asia-Pacific region, said Benevento.
“We see (more of) our customers either expanding their operations that they already have in Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand, or announcing new investments,” he said.
He added that the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated several of its customers’ plans to expand their footprint regionally, as the pandemic “really exposed the global supply chain as having quite a few problems”.
“The goal is to really localise our supply chain in each region where we supply customers. A lot of times ,they’re the same customers in multiple regions,” he said.
“So we want to have similar facilities (and) similar materials, but generally we’re sourcing from local or regional suppliers wherever we can.”
Kenneth De Muynck, Asia-Pacific general manager at Oliver, said: “Our new capabilities in Johor aim to handle the growing demand from our customers across a wider geography in the Asia-Pacific with a more resilient supply chain.”
Johor is seen as an ideal location due to factors such as workforce availability and political stability, he said.
Malaysia is also home to a high concentration of medical device manufacturing sites in the region, with several multinational corporations in Johor and Penang, De Muynck noted.
Lee said that the facility is a “clear signal that Johor is fast becoming the preferred destination for future-ready investment”.
“This investment will enhance Malaysia’s position as the regional hub for medical device manufacturing and innovation,” he added.
Benevento said that, because the manufacturing facility will supply its customers in the Asia-Pacific, the company will have “no real exposure” to the US tariffs.
“This is a long-term investment that we’re making, and many of our customers say the same thing – they’re really not making short-term decisions based on the tariffs, because the situation could change,” he said.
Oliver has been investing in new capabilities to support the medical industry in Asia. It has a converting facility in Suzhou, China, which serves as the base for its operations in the country.
The US-based group set up its regional headquarters in Singapore in 2018, and a regional technical centre in the city-state about two years later. In the technical centre, customers work directly with Oliver’s sterile barrier-packaging specialists to design, test and troubleshoot their packaging.
