Expansion of FitRight brief manufacturing facility in Lithia Springs
September 17, 2012 - United States Of America
Opened just less than a year ago, Medline Industries, Inc.’s new 600,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art adult incontinence products manufacturing facility is expanding due to overwhelming customer demand. Since opening earlier this year, the facility, located in Lithia Springs, Ga., has expanded capacity by 50 percent and just added a fifth machine, bringing the total investment in this facility to well over $100 million.
In addition, Medline has already hired about 120 new employees and plans on adding more positions to support the additional production lines.
"We’ve had tremendous response from our customers to the new adult incontinence products we’re making here,” said Dan Love, president of Medline’s personal care products division. “As the population ages, there is more and more demand for innovative products like our new FitRight brief, which help people manage their incontinence with dignity."
Medline, the largest privately held manufacturer and distributor of health care supplies in the United States and the leading provider of disposable incontinence products to the long-term care and hospital markets, built the new facility to produce the company’s newest and most innovative adult incontinence brand of products called FitRight.
Today, more than half of all homebound older persons and more than half of all nursing home residents have some form of incontinence. This problem will become even more profound as the graying of America continues. By 2030, one out of every five Americans will be 65 or older.
State-of-the-art equipment at the new manufacturing facility enables Medline to make products more energy efficient compared to more traditional machines. Technologically-advanced packaging equipment makes the packaging 20 percent smaller and therefore more “green,” enabling more product to fit in the cases and on the trucks for more efficient and environmentally-friendly shipping and delivery.
The new facility includes a 300,000-square-foot warehouse and distribution center where millions of adult briefs are shipped every week from 90 docks to Medline’s 34 distribution centers located around the country.