Teel Plastics installs Davis-Standard lines to address swab stick demand

Teel Plastics has risen to the pandemic challenge by becoming one of the US’ largest and most reliable suppliers of swab sticks for COVID testing.

Since March 2020, the company has produced over 500 million swab sticks for donmestic customers. Due to a recent contract from the US Department of Defense, Teel will boost production in 2021 by adding 66 million extruded and 50 million injected molded swab sticks each month.

The company recently installed two Davis-Standard extrusion lines to support the increased capacity. In addition, Teel has been selected to manufacture profiles for a proprietary respirator device used to treat patients in critical care. These profiles will also be produced on Davis-Standard lines, including a new custom line.

Christian Herrild, Director of Growth Strategies for Teel Plastics, said: “Before the pandemic began, we were the only US company to make diagnostic swabs needed for coronavirus testing. This required us to react quickly to support the surge in test kits. Our development style, product repeatability, and ability to navigate highly regulated markets have been key to our response. Our dedicated employees have done what is necessary to meet very tight timelines, including taking on additional shifts. Our large manufacturing and engineering teams, chemists and analytical lab are definitely a differentiator for us.

“We’ve also been able to rely on our relationship with Davis-Standard. We needed to boost production capacity and Davis-Standard responded to our extrusion needs in record time.” 

Teel has a longstanding relationship with Davis-Standard. With more than 30 Davis-Standard extrusion lines, some dating back to the 1980s, the newly installed profile lines, extruders through downstream, are application-specific with controls, feedscrews, and machinery customized for Teel’s swab stick process.

Davis-Standard has supplied Teel with extruders and associated machinery in various models over the years for manufacturing tight-tolerance tubing and profiles in different sizes. These machines process a range of materials including high temperature, water sensitive and custom blended resins for products in the medical, cosmetics, industrial piping, film core and water treatment industries.