Top Shop insight

We are quite honored to be featured in this Exclusive Benchmarking Report on the 2021 Top Shops in this month’s issue of Plastics Technology magazine. Our insight on managing our operation during a pandemic was mentioned several times. You can read the article here. Being named one of 21 Top Injection Molding shops in North America (AGAIN), doesn’t mean we have reached a pinnacle.Our Top Shops Benchmarking report highlights where we need to continue to focus improvement. That was the main driver behind entering into the assessment. Not to see if we could get named a Top Shop again, (although we were hoping for it), but to see how we compare and what we need to do to continue to prepare for an uncertain future.

Our worst performance metric was our scrap recycling rate, we were way outside the norm. We need to do better with our residual processing resin. Molding predominately in engineered resins really ties our hands regarding simply recycling our post processing resin. Recyclers do not want engineered resins, (Category 7, the OTHER resins).  We’ve made some attempts at alternative disposal, but municipalities are difficult if not hesitant to work with us.

Our other opportunities for improvement are more signs of who we are as a processor, rather than deficiencies. Annual sales growth, Capacity utilization, Machine usage, and Resin weight processed/employee were all flagged as requiring improvement. While we will take steps to advance these numbers, they more accurately point to some of our strengths.

We excel at offering small and medium volume OEMS, (10-5000 piece lot sizes) an option to get their parts made in a timely and efficient manner by a highly competent processor. These are also the type of companies that do not have or are not great at forecasting. As such, they need parts when they need parts. They typically call or email when their supply is diminished, and they need replacements in a short period of time. Capacity Utilization points to keeping presses running constantly. Yet, if your customer base calls when they need parts, you need to be able to offer them a reasonable turnaround. You cannot do that if your presses are always full. We run at a lower capacity on purpose, to satisfy our customers’ needs for quicker turnaround. The same scenario applies to machine usage as well.

Annual growth was a problem with everyone in the industry. The pandemic had many companies doing less business than prior years.

Are you working with a Top Shop? Wish you were? Would you prefer to order lots of 500 or 1000 but your current molder will not let you? Need micromolding, insert molding, injection mold design? Check us out or drop us a line. We may be just what you are looking for.