Geopolitics is rewriting the world’s industrial playbook. In response, Clayens Group is leveraging change for growth. Following consistent double-digit expansion over the past few years, the company, a world-leading fabricator of composite, polymer, and metal components, is on the rise. With over 30 facilities in nine countries, some as far afield as Hungary, Slovakia, Tunisia, and Morocco, this international giant intends to become a billion-dollar firm over the next three years.
Responsible for many of the “invisible” parts the modern world hinges on, Clayens Group specializes in conceptualizing, developing, designing, and making components that often comprise sophisticated combinations of materials including polymer composites and metals. To achieve this, the company harnesses the expertise of more than 200 engineers and a range of sophisticated forming, stamping, over-molding, vacuum injection, machining, and other state-of-the-art techniques.
Headquartered in Genas, France, and with nine facilities in the United States alone, Clayens Group serves a diverse range of global industries. Of these, electrical infrastructure is one of its main sources of business. The updating of national infrastructure across the United States also forms a large part of its income via service providers who approach the company for its extensive knowledge of a great variety of engineering solutions.
With a well-equipped research and development team providing customers with long-term support, the company also supplies the medical industry with custom machinery. An extensive plant in Chicago fabricates medical consumables, while other outstanding infrastructure includes six engineering centers, eight cleanrooms, and eleven healthcare-specific facilities, of which two are in the United States, one in Mexico, and five in France. The medical industry also benefits from the firm’s expertise in fabricating components for pharmaceutical packaging, in vitro diagnostics, and more.
To this end, Clayens Group is also working on nano mold technology for improved fluid flow across textured surfaces in drug delivery devices. While this technology is currently aimed at the world of medicine, the company is looking at ways to implement its use in other industries as well.
With custom, high-complexity yields being a standard part of its everyday output, Clayens Group’s considerable European footprint, with all its enhanced capabilities, serves as a significant draw for discerning clientele, while its American presence increases its share in the automotive industry, constituting around 25 percent of its annual revenue.
Supporting these fabricators in every way possible, especially in electric vehicle fabrication, Clayens Group fabricates components ranging from as heavy as 25 kilograms to as light as 0.08 grams.
While the main portion of its fabrication for the automotive industry is executed in Mexico, Deric Frisch, Director of Business Development, foresees a percentage of that business returning to the United States due to the new tariff situation many companies are navigating. To this end, Clayens Group is well-prepared for a new influx of business in the United States. Home to 15 plants across North America, the company acquired Parkway Products in 2023—with eight plants—alongside four others and more that have followed since then, significantly expanding its overall market presence and its reach.
Successfully managing an operation of this size means working to the highest safety standards. This is an important aspect of Clayens Group’s reputation for excellence, as the company is known in industry circles for envelope-pushing innovation. Here, precision through automation and superb attention to detail means the team is also accustomed to critical fabrication demands.
One of the company’s latest processes comprises magnesium molding to replace plastic. Favored for minimal weight combined with premium strength, these components are popular in the automotive industry—particularly for insulating camera systems from electromagnetic disturbances like radio frequencies. Naturally, this product has also proven popular in the defense and aerospace sectors.
As markets like the automotive industry and others are generally slow to evolve, Clayens Group’s research and development team offers especially high value, especially since many projects—like those in the medical industry—tend to need long-term support, which the team is well-versed in providing. More recently, the company has been scouting for new industries to serve, bringing semiconductor fabrication and data centers into the fold.
These industries typically benefit from Clayens Group’s vast range of more than 3,000 materials and over 40 custom formulations. As a result, educating clients on its latest capabilities and their possibilities is another large part of the firm’s education efforts. “The plastics industry is so [complex]. Everyone has their secret formula,” Frisch says, highlighting the benefits of the lunch-and-learns the team provides to keep customers abreast of the latest developments.
“It’s been a big push for us to get out there and… get the decision makers educated on what we can offer,” he continues.
As 98 percent of the Group’s offerings comprise custom fabrication, this level of in-person marketing is an important aspect of the evolution and diversification of its business. In the process, being environmentally responsible remains top of mind. Considering itself accountable to future generations, Clayens Group makes its commitment to reducing CO2 emissions clear on its website and in its marketing materials.
Reaching across continents, including Africa, Europe, North America, and beyond, the company is currently exploring the possibility of an enhanced presence in Asia. The global tariffs “game of chess” that many fabricators face has left the Group unconcerned yet strategic about its future moves. Frisch supports the new tariffs bill, as he notes that it is returning much fabrication to U.S. shores—which he sees as a very good thing as it means more opportunity all around.
“‘A world of opportunities’ is truly our tagline. You name it, our parts are everywhere,” he says, underscoring his pride in the company’s global team and large customer base. Founded in the early 1930s, Clayens moved from being a family business into becoming an international force to be reckoned with through acquisition in stride with market trends. The state of flux in the job market and world economies in recent years served to generate considerable change for the firm. Today, it employs a global team formidable in its diversity.
To cultivate a sense of unity and collaboration in such a vast organization, employees gather online for regular fortnightly, annual, and other meetings. The company also supports staff exchanges between countries. “At the end of the day, people do business with people. That’s one thing I don’t think artificial intelligence will ever [change],” Frisch says of the importance of establishing and maintaining trust amongst team members and extending that to include customers. “We’re really building that momentum now.”
As a result, he is visibly pleased with the more than 5,000 industry experts Clayens Group currently employs. “They all have deeply rooted yet different types of experience,” he says. In his role as the company’s veritable skills matchmaker stimulating good cross-cultural teamwork, the observation is sincere. “I like to use that experience and knowledge to [integrate it into the] whole group,” he shares.
This passion for people—and for developing their true potential—has become the binding force that inspires the company’s evolution. From its 30 percent female management goal to significantly reducing emissions by 2030, it is also set to increase each staff member’s professional development time by 5 percent annually—an approach that promises even further depth of knowledge and expertise.
Welcoming more growth through organic expansion and acquisition, Clayens Group has its sights set on becoming increasingly environmentally responsible. And with its gargantuan fiscal goal at the forefront of all its current plans—and already in reach—wisely tending to and maintaining the relationships that have brought it success remains the golden key to Clayens Group’s continuing success story.
