ORBIS Corporation has opened its newest U.S. manufacturing facility in Greenville, Texas, marking a major expansion of the company’s southern footprint and its automation capabilities. The renovated one-million-square-foot complex, which includes 420,000 square feet of production space and 240,000 square feet of warehousing, produces a range of reusable packaging, including plastic pallets, bulk containers, and totes that support supply chains across several industries.
“This renovated facility not only expands our manufacturing capabilities and geographic reach,” said Norm Kukuk, President of ORBIS Corporation. “It also reinforces our commitment to sustainability and innovation. By repurposing an existing building and investing in advanced automation, we’re better positioned to serve our customers with speed, efficiency and environmentally responsible solutions.”
The company has been running production at Greenville since last spring, but waited until the facility was fully equipped with high-pressure injection molding and structural foam machinery before hosting its grand opening celebration last week. Over 100 guests attended, including local dignitaries, customers, and supply chain influencers. Kukuk said showcasing the plant in its current state helped visitors appreciate the dramatic scale of the investment and understand the strategic importance of the location.
16 injection molding presses with room to triple capacity
Greenville currently operates 16 injection molding presses, representing roughly one-third of the space’s manufacturing potential. With that initial capacity already supporting customer demand across multiple verticals, the remainder of the building provides a runway for growth as new business is captured. “We have outfitted our first third,” said Kukuk. “Now we have capacity not only to serve our critical customers but also to work on new opportunities as well.”
The Greenville site is positioned 50 miles northeast of Dallas, an area with emerging access to logistics corridors, supportive economic development agencies and a strong manufacturing-ready labor pool. The facility is expected to create more than 190 jobs over the next three years, with many already in place.
“The community excitement and the willingness to help has been felt every day,” Kukuk said.
Built for speed, reach, and future growth
Greenville supports ORBIS’ growing customer base in the southern United States and helps reduce freight distance and delivery times to customers expanding into the Southwest. “Geographically, it gives us a shipping point closer to our customers,” said Kukuk. “We’re moving a lot of products south and west. This helps put delivery costs in the right regions and maintain appropriate lead times.”
The facility is only operating about a third of its potential manufacturing space as part of phase one. “We have outfitted our first third,” said Kukuk. “We haven’t had room to really grow and go after new industry segments to the extent we wanted. Now we have capacity not only to serve our critical customers but also to work on new opportunities as well.”
This expansion runway stood out to customers who toured the plant during the grand opening. “They saw how we’re going to continue to grow with them in the future,” said Kukuk. “You have to see it to believe it.”
A significant automation milestone
While ORBIS has invested heavily in new molding equipment across multiple locations in recent years, Greenville presented a unique opportunity to design automation into workflows from the ground up. The result is a manufacturing approach that reduces manual touches, increases consistency and drives efficiency from molding through palletizing and into finished goods storage.
The most notable advancement is the introduction of automated RFID tag placement and activation in line with production. “We are one of the first to not only place the tag but also make the electronic connection between the tag and the product it’s going on,” said Kukuk. “When a customer gets it, it’s all ready to be used in their RFID systems. They don’t have to do anything.” (For an overview, visit our reusable packaging technology hub.)
Every tote or pallet is serialized at the press, meaning critical product data is permanently linked at the moment of manufacture. “We activate the tag and connect the data that goes with it,” said Kukuk. “Customers know when the product was made, what size it is, the tooling it came from; everything is tied together, and it’s immediately usable.”
This approach improves traceability, accuracy and the speed of deployment for digital supply chain programs. It also removes steps that historically created headaches downstream. “Most of our competitive market space doesn’t want any part of activating tags,” said Kukuk. “We’re able to take that burden off our customers.”
For broader context on ORBIS’ reusable packaging portfolio and technology roadmap, see our ORBIS company hub.
A sustainability story rooted in reuse
The Greenville facility was previously an injection molding plant for a leading household and commercial products manufacturer and later served as multi-tenant warehouse space. By revitalizing rather than replacing the structure, ORBIS minimized construction time, cost and environmental impact while returning advanced manufacturing to the site.
“Instead of building a brand new plant, we said we can go faster to market by refurbishing an existing building,” said Kukuk. “It’s less energy than building new, and the structure was already in place.” The location already included key infrastructure for plastics manufacturing, including process plumbing and resin silos originally designed for injection molding. “It was built for injection molding,” said Kukuk. “It’s been a warehouse for many different companies, so it’s kind of cool to be able to bring injection molding back to Greenville, Texas.”
This move aligns with the values of Menasha Corporation, ORBIS’ parent company, which encourages all business units to invest in the communities where they operate. Through the Menasha Foundation, ORBIS will support local initiatives as the site grows, a model that has already strengthened connections in communities such as Urbana, Ohio.
A balanced production network
Greenville will eventually serve as a major hub for reusable packaging used in retail and consumer goods supply chains in the southern United States, while Urbana remains the company’s primary location for automotive-dedicated flow in the Midwest. Even so, the network remains fluid.
“If it’s regional, we’ll still run products in Urbana, and we’ll still run products in Greenville,” said Kukuk. “Our ultimate goal is to keep automotive-heavy flow in Urbana and retail-heavy flow in Texas, but we will make it where it needs to be made.”
This flexibility helps reduce transportation emissions and improve responsiveness to changing customer demand.
Investment during uncertainty
Kukuk acknowledged that the past year has presented challenges across the manufacturing landscape. Interest rates, inflationary pressure, and supply chain unpredictability have all influenced purchasing cycles and capital budgets. Still, ORBIS remains focused on strategic investment.
“It’s definitely been an interesting year,” he said. “But this is where we invest. We’re prepared to come out of it stronger, and we’re excited about what’s ahead.”
Greenville reflects that mindset, a future-forward plant with automation capacity to scale and diversification potential when emerging opportunities arise.
Asked for his biggest takeaway from the massive Greenville project, Kukuk credited customers walking through the plant for saying it best, that ‘you have to see it to believe it.’
“They see how ORBIS is going to continue to grow with them, and how we’re doing it with high quality,” concluded Kukuk.
Sidebar: One Year After Creative Techniques Acquisition, New Capabilities Take Hold
As ORBIS advances high-volume molding automation in places like Greenville, the company is also strengthening its ability to support rapid innovation and lower-volume customization. In late October, ORBIS marked the first anniversary of its acquisition of Creative Techniques, a Michigan-based custom injection molding specialist that brings new tooling capabilities and design agility to the business.
“That was a year ago, October 31,” said Kukuk. “That team is doing great things. They are fully integrated and part of the ORBIS team.” The acquisition gives ORBIS a flexible way to serve customers who want to test new packaging or refine designs before scaling. “We are now stepping our toes in the water of building our own injection molding tools,” he said. “For low volume, quick turn molds, we can build those in house efficiently and help customers innovate.”
A key difference lies in the expected production life of the molds. ORBIS tools for pallets and bulk bins are designed for multi-year, high-volume runs, capable of five to seven million shots over their lifecycle. Their tooling is built for shorter runs, which allows for faster engineering changes and more agile development. The combined capability lets ORBIS support both early-stage testing and full commercial scale within the same organization.
It traditionally served industrial segments with smaller components and shorter production requirements. While those customers remain important, ORBIS sees broader potential with its national reach and cross-industry customer base. “It is a very good cultural fit,” said Kukuk. “And we are expanding beyond industrial into pharmaceuticals and retail, where there is significant value to share.”
By using their expertise to support faster R&D, ORBIS can now provide sampling, testing and customer validation with lower risk and quicker turnaround. As Kukuk explained, the approach opens a new avenue for innovation at the front end of the product lifecycle, while larger facilities like Greenville deliver scale on the back end.
Rick LeBlanc, EMBA, is the founder and editor of Reusable Packaging News (subscribe to the free newsletter) and editor of Western Pallet Magazine. A supply chain journalist with more than 30 years of experience, he specializes in pallets, reusable packaging, material handling and related operations. Rick is co-author of Pallets: A North American Perspective and Pallets & Progress: A Collected History of Pallets and Palletized Handling 1922–1945. He is also an advisory board member of the Virginia Tech Center for Packaging and Unit Load Design. Read Rick’s full bio.
