Top Shop Data Insight – A look in the mirror, (as it were).

I was in the home gym working out this morning. I was inspired to work out after seeing myself in pictures from over the holidays.

PlastiCert uses Plastics Technology Magazine’s Top Shop program to get that “look in the mirror”. Back in 2015, we participated in PT’s World Class Processor evaluation. We wanted to assess ourselves being a few years since our MBO. We really wanted to know the steps necessary to be regarded “World Class”. The result was we were already a World Class Processor according to PT magazine. Over time we continued to make changes and improvements. In 2020 PT magazine was initiated the Top Shop assessment program. Seeing that this latest assessment would go beyond processing and cover ALL functional areas of the company, we jumped at the chance to see how we had progressed. This submission back in 2020 was with the intent of seeing how we compare. Not just making great molds and processing composite parts but include the rest of the company. That first Top Shop award in 2020 was a genuine surprise. Our submissions in 2021 and 2022 were to see if we were keeping up with the evolution of the industry during and post COVID. Our designation as a Top Shop for the second, and now third time, has been both gratifying and a great opportunity to continually improve.

Following the official announcement, we receive a report, showing where we sit in relation to all responses, as well as PlastiCert compared to our fellow 23 Top Shops in North America. They are broken down into categories of Strengths, On Track, and Opportunity buckets.

There are 26 quantified assessments of production, financial, human resource, sales, and quality  metrics. Another 30+ assessments of company attributes to the other submissions.

All this information gives us a good roadmap for where we are (compared to other injection molders) and where we need to go.

In future posts, I will highlight some of the insights we have been given, and steps we plan to take to continually improve ourselves.