BD said it will spend approximately $60 million on the 69,000-square-foot expansion and upgrade of the plant, which it wants to transform into “one of the largest and most sophisticated plastic molding plants in the world,” the company said on its website. The project is expected to be completed by 2021.

Medical technology company BD broke ground last week on what will be its flagship injection molding and manufacturing facility in Columbus, NE. Governor Pete Ricketts and state and local public officials joined BD executives at the ceremony at the company’s Columbus-East facility on Oct. 25.

Also speaking at the event, Laurie Reagan, Plant Manager for the new plastic molding facility, highlighted BD’s plans to invest $7 million to retain and retrain its employees for the different skill sets needed for plastic molding manufacturing or to facilitate their transfer to its other manufacturing facility in Columbus or other sites across the BD network. BD is partnering with Central Community College to create customized curricula for its retraining needs.“BD is one of the largest users of plastic injection molded products in the world, with hundreds of billions of units produced internally each year,” said James Borzi, Executive Vice President and Chief Supply Chain Officer of BD, at the groundbreaking. “The new facility will centralize a majority of BD’s North American plastic molding production and will support multiple business units in the U.S. and around the world.”

BD operates two other facilities in Nebraska—Holdrege and Broken Bow—and employs approximately 2,500 people across the state.