About Polo Custom Products

Polo is founded.

Founded in 1947 as Polo Plastics, contract manufacturer Polo Custom Products today designs, engineers, and manufactures custom products and components for original equipment manufacturers in the medical, fire and safety, industrial and government/defense markets. Polo Custom Products specializes in custom industrial sewing, heat sealing, and thermoforming flexible, pliable materials, fabrics and films. Customers include well-known OEMs and government agencies seeking innovative high-quality custom manufacturing solutions.

At this point the company still known as Polo Plastics establishes a manufacturing facility in Monticello, Iowa

Polo Custom Products corporate offices move from Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Topeka, Kansas.

Exceeding our customer’s requirements is essential. To provide our customer’s more options Polo Custom Products establishes partnerships in China to import industrial sewn & RF welded custom manufactured products.

Polo Custom Products expands capacity by establishing a new custom products manufacturing factory in Louisville, Mississippi.

The ISO 9001:2015 standard is recognized worldwide by our customers who understand the benefits of working with companies that are ISO 9001 certified. In fact, some of our customers will only do business with certified companies because it gives them assurance our management systems are constantly assessed and approved. Key benefits of being certified are minimizes mistakes, improves reporting and communications ensures manufacture of better-quality products and service, provides more reliable production scheduling and delivery, and ensures standards are maintained by annual assessments.

Polo Custom Products adds custom thermoforming of fabrics and foam as an additional manufacturing process to industrial sewing and RF sealing. Thermoforming product examples include EVA cases, holsters, and pouches.

Polo Custom Products expands and relocates the Louisville, Mississippi manufacturing facility to a 105,000 sq. ft. building helping to meet our customer’s needs for rapid manufacturing of custom designed products.

Polo Custom Products becomes DDTC/State Dept. Registered for ITAR Compliance. The International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) is a United States regulatory guideline to restrict and control the export of defense and military related technologies to safeguard U.S. national security and further U.S. foreign policy objectives.

Polo Custom Products expands domestic Thermoforming capabilities and acquires Foarm Following Function, Inc. in Santa Barbara, California.

Polo Custom Products expands Product Development Department to add 14,000 sq. ft. in the Monticello, IA plant.

Polo Custom Products implements JCP. The Joint Certification Program (JCP) certifies Canadian and United States (U.S.) contractors’ access to unclassified military technical data belonging to Canada’s Department of National Defence (DND) and to the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD). This Program helps to protect controlled Unclassified Militarily Critical Technical Data (MCTD) and technology from common adversaries, but allows it to flow to certified Canadian and U.S. companies that have a legitimate need-to-know for business purposes. This program is effective in protecting the competitive edge of North American companies by ensuring only eligible companies are provided with this data.

To help our customer’s better benefit from using the custom product manufacturing expertise provided by Polo Custom Products, the company restructures sales and product development departments to align with our market segments of medical, fire & safety, defense, and industrial.

To meet our customer’s needs for ever increasing productivity from the back office to the plant floor we implemented a new Enterprise Resource Planning System/ERP, Syteline by Infor.

In 2017 Polo Custom Products celebrated 70 years in business helping customers with custom product design, engineering, and manufacturing.

Polo Custom Products becomes HUBZone certified. Polo Custom Products achieved company level diversity certification referring to the Historically Underutilized Business Zone program that helps small businesses located in distressed areas. The HUBZone program is in place to increase employment opportunities, investment and economic development in these areas. The Small Business Administration (SBA) regulates and implements the HUBZone program.

Established additional manufacturing partners in Dominican Republic & Puerto Rico. This provides more manufacturing options depending on our customers needs.

Established additional manufacturing partners in Myanmar & Vietnam. This provides us more options depending on our customers needs.

Implemented ISO 13485:2016?
As the international standard for Quality Management Systems in the medical device industry ISO 13485:2016 has already been tested and proven. Companies that have achieved certification can show proof to potential clients that they comply with best practices, and with regulatory requirements. And, along the way, your company will naturally enjoy better control over its processes, and continual improvement – driving continual ROI.