KDV Label has opened the doors on a sprawling new 117,000-square-foot manufacturing facility near Les Paul Parkway in Waukesha, consolidating what had been scattered local operations under a single roof built with room to grow even bigger down the line. The custom label manufacturer marked the occasion with a grand-opening event on August 5, welcoming customers, business partners, suppliers, and community members to tour the new building and watch live demonstrations of its label-printing capabilities.
The facility sits at 2230 Corporate Drive and was designed and built by Brookfield-based Briohn Building Corporation, which broke ground on the site in May 2025, according to KDV Label. As reported by Greater Milwaukee Today, KDV Label President and CEO Keith Walz noted the company broke ground on the site roughly a year before opening it, and that the new plant includes manufacturing space, printing presses, offices, and warehousing all in one location. The site was engineered with room for a future 39,000-square-foot addition, giving the company a clear runway for further expansion.
Consolidation Aims to Speed Up Production
KDV Label expects that bringing its Waukesha operations together under one roof will make it easier for teams to collaborate and improve the flow of materials and work through the plant, per the same account. The company manufactures custom labels for the food, beverage, personal care, dairy, automotive, and specialty consumer goods industries, and the new operation is built to support pressure-sensitive and digital labels, expanded content labels, unsupported film labels, variable data labels, and promotional labels. Walz said the facility reflects the company's commitment and positions it to keep delivering service, quality, and partnership to customers, according to a company news release cited by Greater Milwaukee Today.
The expanded facility provides additional production capacity at a moment when demand for custom labels is increasing, the outlet reports. KDV Label said the investment will help the company respond to that growing customer demand while preserving the quality and attention to detail associated with its products. The expansion also includes investment in label-printing technology, workforce development, and relationships with customers and suppliers.
Bigger Digital Print Floor, More Hiring
The Waukesha site includes a dedicated digital print room three times larger than KDV's previous digital print area, a technology upgrade that enables faster turnarounds for high-SKU consumer packaging, according to Packaging Impressions. That kind of flexible, short-run digital capability has become increasingly important to consumer packaged goods brands. Job postings from May indicate KDV Label was actively recruiting flexographic press operators, digital press operators, and press helpers across second and third shifts to staff the new plant.
The grand-opening event featured demonstrations of technology supporting KDV's continued growth, and a photograph provided by the City of Waukesha shows Walz holding scissors alongside Waukesha Mayor Alicia Halvensleben at the ribbon-cutting. KDV Label was founded in 1974 by Karen and Dick Vaughn in a family garage and was later expanded four-fold under second-generation leader Shane Vaughn, who served as CEO for 27 years before retiring in April 2023. Keith Walz took over as president and CEO that same month after serving as chief financial officer since 2021, bringing prior executive experience from Brady Corporation and Osborn LLC.
Private Equity Backing and Regional Growth
Milwaukee-based private equity firm Mason Wells acquired KDV Label and sister entity I-Graphics LLC in June 2021 in partnership with members of the Vaughn family and company management, according to Mason Wells. Beyond its Waukesha headquarters, KDV Label operates manufacturing locations in Sugar Grove, Illinois, and Loveland, Colorado, the latter formerly run as I-Graphics LLC. The company expanded its Midwestern footprint further in July 2023 by acquiring Selective Label & Printing, Inc., a custom label printer in Sugar Grove that brought complementary flexographic and digital printing operations.
KDV Label's operational track record has also drawn industry recognition: the company won the Tag and Label Manufacturers Institute Eugene Singer Award for Management Excellence in the medium-sized converter category in both 2024 and 2025, an award that evaluates ratio studies measuring growth and cost management. Total capital expenditures for the Waukesha buildout and any net change in the company's overall headcount were not disclosed in available materials.
Part of a Broader Waukesha Building Boom
KDV Label's new plant lands amid a wider wave of industrial investment across Waukesha County. Hoodline previously reported that The Gund Company proposed a 110,000-square-foot Philip Drive expansion in June, part of a sustained run of demand for industrial space in the area that has also included major local capital projects, such as Carroll University's recently opened business and technology building.
