3. Custom Molds, Inc.
1987
• Founded by father/son team Tom and Mason Miller
• Custom design molds for plastic parts
1990's
• Decided to expand into a limited manufacturer of plastic parts
• Growing reputation as a supplier of high-quality plastic parts
2009
• Changing Sales Mix
• Delivery and Quality Issues
4. Analysis
Primary Focus - Mold Fabrication
• High Customer Contact
• Made-To-Order
• In between job process & small batch processing- High customization- Low product
volume
Now as the sales mix has slowly changed the company is moving towards a large batch line process
Plastic Parts
• Lower Customer Contact
• Assemble-to-Order
• Large batch line process - Products standardized - High volume
5. Process Flow Chart
Mold Fabrication Process
• Total process time: 2 to 4 weeks
• Fabrication: 3 to 5 days
• Testing and inspection: 1 day
o Injection machine resource shared with part process
• Clean and polish: ½ day
• Packing and shipping: ½ day
6. Process Flow Chart
Plastic Parts - Mold Already Made
• Order review - verifies raw materials and part specifications
• Raw material orders are placed: Received with one week
• Dry Mix: ½ day
• Wet Mix: ½ day
• Injection Machine: 5000 parts per day
• Cut and trim
• Testing and inspection
• Packing/shipping or assembly
7. Bottlenecks occurring...
Custom molds division - "Made to Order Strategy"
Plastic parts division - "Assembly to order strategy"
Need to minimize idle time and keep process moving
Allocation of equipment and manpower
• Limited injection machine resources
• Injection machines required for both part fabrication and mold test
• Same machinist required for design and fabrication phase, creating a potential
bottleneck
.
Mold Fabrication - Work flow issues
• Wait to receive materials before they review work load
• With a typical 3 week lead-time for raw materials they could be determining
scheduling
Plastic Mold-raw materials received in one week?
8. Competitive Priorities
Custom mold
• Lead time not critical
• Quality is very important in meeting demand specifications
• Typically not price sensitive
• Low volume
Plastic parts
• Lead time critical
• Quality very important
• Price sensitive
• High volume
11. Alternatives
1. Continue operating as is
2. Discontinue custom mold fabrication and focus on high
volume plastic parts
3. Restructure and reorganize plant to adjust to the changing
sales mix
• Reduce emphasis on mold fabrication
• Restructure plant layout
• Increase part production capacity
• Change pricing to reflect changing market
o Offer larger bulk discounts for plastic parts
• Flexible workforce - make sure any machinist can work on any
job
• Review quality control processes
12. Clear Recommendations
Improve Lead Times
• There are only four weeks (maximum) accounted for in the
process chart for mold production and a nine week lead time
quoted.
o Flexibility exist with process and with customers expectations.
o Leverage this flexibility to improve plastic part deliveries
• Company was historically driven by custom molds.
o Plastic parts production is not being allocated its due time.
• Maximize use of time of injection machines (capacity=5000/day)
o Proper scheduling needs to take place to allocate time for
small (0-500), large (500-5000) and custom mold testing.
Operations before and after injection machine is a day or
two so bottleneck is with machine itself.
13. Clear Recommendations
Eliminate one machinist
Custom Mold, Inc. operated with overtime staffing in 2006 and 2007
for mold manufacturing
2008 volumes allows for elimination of one master machinist.
Currently being reassigned to help expedite other functions
Order Size Total Molds 2006 Total Molds 2007 Total Molds 2008
1 80 74 72
2 120 140 150
3 120 153 165
4 20 24 20
5 15 25 20
6 24 48 30
7 14 0 7
8 80 48 32
9 99 72 45
10 150 100 50
Total: 722 684 591
Available
Capacity
650 650 650
(250 days/year,
5 days/mold,
13 machinists)
14. Clear Recommendations
Revise block layout
• Improve closeness factor of key groups
• Allocate more space to injection machine
• Acquire more injection machines to increase capacity
• Reduce space for mold fabrication
Review and focus on who their customer base is
• Market to other customer base to increase plastic part
manufacturing business if now equipped to handle it.
• They should create a subsidiary for plastic part manufacturing
(Plastic Parts, Inc.) and operate them as more distinct business
but under one roof.
Renewed focus on quality
• Improved scheduling time and better layout should open up
possibilities and time for quality measures to be put in place.
• 3rd party quality audit.
15. Detailed Next Steps
• Implement Recommendations
• Continued review of process flow and process layout
• In the future, Custom Molds may consider moving testing to
a more central location to mitigate back and forth time
between departments.
o Cost prohibitive at this point.
o We are not recommending this immediately due to uncertain
costs associated with retro-fitting and plumbing
Editor's Notes
Process strategyThe numbers for mold fabrication have stayed the same but orders for multiple molds were decliningPlastic parts- number of orders per year has declined but the order sizes were becoming larger and larger
