Louisiana hatches its own.

Many states woo plastics companies. One raises them from scratch.

You can't visit a plastics trade show today without running across booths manned by regional development authorities eager to recruit plastics processing firms that are looking to expand or relocate. You may also run into

The Louisiana Productivity Center (LPC) was established in 1987 at the University of Southwestern Louisiana in Lafayette. Supported by state and federal funds, the LPC was created to help remedy Louisiana's dearth of manufacturing industry apart from petrochemicals, oil, and gas. The LPC's Center for Plastics, Composites and Polymers provides technical assistance to any Louisiana company that needs help in plastics mold or part design or processing. It's all free - first come, first served - and no request is turned away. Even if some other states (like Kentucky and Tennessee) have productivity centers, can any of them match that offer?

LPC's plastics program is run by Mark L. Habetz. An experienced plastic parts designer and self-described "quick learner," he has taught himself just about every facet of injection molding. He solicited corporate sponsors to help furnish a CAD/CAE system, two complete molding cells, and a materials-testing lab.

"For injection molding, we're a one-stop shop," Habetz says. "We'll help you develop a company, a product, and a material." Habetz has helped put together three custom injection molding companies from nothing. "These guys never had seen an injection machine," Habetz says. What they had was an idea to make a product, a little capital, and a lot of gumption. Habetz provided the initial training at the LPC lab and led his clients through every step of the way from part and mold design to equipment specification, facilities layout, production planning, start-up, and periodic troubleshooting. Each project took about two years to complete.

Habetz has helped both new and established Louisiana manufacturers create over 20 new plastic parts, ranging from housewares to electronic housings. For each part, Habetz created a CAD solid model, performed flow and cooling analysis when necessary, and helped clients determine the optimum number of cavities, type of cooling, gate location, cavity finish, use of hot or cold runners, choice of steel, and overall mold layout. In some cases, he has helped clients contract for rapid prototyping. Habetz and his LPC colleagues have even written software for part quoting and predicting molded-part crystallinity.

You may not want to move to Louisiana to take advantage of this outstanding program. But if your state has industrial development dollars to spend, it could borrow a few ideas from bayou country to help new plastics businesses and existing ones like yours.