Two years after its precision machining operation was brought in from the Silicon Valley, Beckman Coulter has begun moving a related plastic injections molding unit to Indianapolis from California.

Bringing in the molding business and a related expansion of an engineering and marketing operation could add up to 100 jobs by mid-2010, raising the medical diagnostic equipment maker’s total employment in the city to about 550.

Despite the recession, Beckman Coulter is expanding on the strength of a health-care industry that remains on course this year to gross about $2.5 trillion in revenue and account for about 18 percent of the U.S. economy.

Beckman Coulter has been trying to cut costs through consolidation and grow its market in the equipment business.

The expansion in Indianapolis has been under way for weeks, although executives of the Brea, Calif.-based company marked it here Friday with a brief ceremony attended by Mayor Greg Ballard and Gov. Mitch Daniels in the office at 7451 Winton Drive.

Daniels lauded the move as a boost to Central Indiana’s burgeoning life sciences industry.

The state has committed incentives totaling $1.28 million in training grants and tax credits for the projects. The tax credits, worth up to $830,000, are provided as jobs are created. The company also will apply for a property tax abatement.

Workers will transfer from the company’s Fullerton, Calif., plastics plant, and some local hires also will be made, said Brett Schmidli, vice president for supply chain management in Beckman Coulter’s discovery and automation division.

A center of excellence also is being established in the Park 100 industrial park on the Northwestside. It will bring together engineers, scientists, customer support and field support services in one building.

The new center will replace the Winton Drive facility. In total, the company is adding about 100,000 square feet of production and office space, including 47,000 in the plastic plant, Schmidli said.

The company took applications at a recent local job fair and is advertising openings on the career section of its Web site at beckmancoulter.com.