IMM's Plant Tour: Experience Infinity

Infinity Molding & Assembly, formerly known as Mid-American Plastics until 2000, celebrated its 25-year anniversary in 2007. Executives agree their company’s success stems from the collective depth of talent in their organization. Left to right are Scott Hagan, Scott A. Titzer, Randy Calvert, Sondra Ash, Joseph R. Crowdus, Larry Goble, and Robert Carpenter.

Our specialty is manufacturing technical parts—electronics, transportation, medical. Some tolerances are so critical that maintaining a 0.0001-inch tolerance is a matter of success or failure,” says Robert W. Carpenter, president and CEO of Infinity Molding & Assembly Inc. (Mt. Vernon, IN). No doubt he saw us pause and stare at the incredibly complex parts in the lobby’s display cabinet before entering the conference room.

Carpenter is a 30-plus-year injection molding veteran who took over the Infinity helm in 2005. He and the other Infinity executives we meet agree that the company’s longevity and continuing growth is primarily due to the combined experience of everyone here, from the top to the shop.

“Failure’s not an option in this industry,” adds Scott A. Titzer, VP, “and we carry that sentiment through all of our activities—engineering, manufacturing, tooling, and maintenance.”

“Our employees are from Indiana, Kentucky, and Illinois,” says Sondra Ash, VP, administration. “There’s quite a depth of plastics and molding talent in this area. We have people here with hundreds of years’ worth of combined hands-on experience, and we all genuinely like being here.”

Let’s find out why: Let’s tour.

Complex plant, complex parts

Our guide, Joseph R. Crowdus, Infinity’s VP of technical services, like everyone else we’ve met so far, wants to talk about the experienced people working here. “We install, service, and wire all our own equipment,” he says. “Any press that’s 200 tons and under, we rig ourselves.”

Asked to describe the plant layout, he smiles and says it all flows together. There are three molding areas: 65- to 200-tonners are in the main room, 180- to 610-ton molding machines are in a high-bay area, and 35- to 150-tonners are in an assembly and insert-molding area.

He says the other departments—like shipping, tooling, maintenance, and quality—are all interconnected, and are all under one roof.

The company prides itself on getting jobs others can’t do.

Computer-integrated molding

Epoxy flooring, gleaming white under bright mercury vapor lighting, reflecting a dedication to cleanliness and order, is the first thing we notice. The next is Infinity’s obvious belief in equipment standardization. Novatec dryers are used, as are Advantage temperature controls and chillers, Branson and Dukane sonic welders, and RJG eDart process control systems.

We see computers everywhere. Manufacturing cells have process controls integrated into the company’s molding machines. Infinity has standardized on ERP software from DTR for handling everything from press and resource scheduling to automatic P.O. generation.

A four-axis Yushin servo robot is removing parts from a silent-running 500-ton all-electric. Crowdus says Infinity presently has eight all-electrics and they’re all Mitsubishis. This is one of the newest.

“We started with Mitsubishi in 1993 and we instantly hit it off with their people,” says Larry Goble, director of operations. “We feel they’re our friends. We have similar relationships with our material suppliers.”

(Top) Infinity’s eight Mitsubishi all-electrics range up to 500 tons. (Middle) This cell inserts terminals into parts before packaging them. (Bottom) A vision system allows operators to check pad printing quality.

Intuitive control

In addition to the reliability and performance of the Mitsubishi machines themselves, Goble says Infinity is sold on their controls. “Mitsubishi’s controllers have identical screens for all of their machines, everything from our 1993 machines to our newest ones. The Mac-8 controllers are the newest for their all-electrics, but their screens are very similar to the older Mac-6s. We achieve consistent part quality because there’s less chance for human error during setup and process optimization.”

We stop at a 150-ton Trueblood vertical. It’s running insert-molded PPS water-pump impellers that are automatically degated, removed, and stacked by a six-axis servo robot. “We pioneered the engineering and manufacturing of plastic impellers in 1997,” Goble says.

As we walk through the company’s assembly room, watching a robot in one cell lift a metal terminal, insert it into a part, precisely bend the terminal, and package the finished part—one finished part every 4 seconds—our guide says Infinity’s assembly operations once were strictly manual.

Is the next stop a storage and shipping department or a cleanroom? Noticing that we’ve paused to stare at the glossy floor, at everything in its place, Crowdus says, “Our shipping department’s run by Henry Walker. He’s been with us for 25 years and he keeps this place spotless. We call it ‘Henry’s Warehouse.’”

On our way to the toolroom we pass a cell producing pad printed turn-signal knobs, one of four inline pad printing cells. A robot gently transfers the molded knobs between this cell’s two Trans Tech printers. The components are dried inline, inspected, and packaged. The operator can easily check the quality of the transferred images, since images of the finished parts are enlarged and projected on the cell’s display screen by a camera.

Infinity has more than 250 active molds, primarily stainless steel. If it wanted to build its own tools, it probably could, owing to its experienced personnel and equipment capacity. However, Crowdus says Infinity prefers to focus on preventive and predictive maintenance. As is virtually every operation under its roof, Infinity’s mold data—everything from maintenance schedules, mold work, and histories to cycle-counter data—is patched into to its plantwide database. All of its molds are equipped with cycle counters.

The company’s serious about mold cleaning, too. It runs an ultrasonic cleaning tank from Blue Wave Ultrasonics and a Maxi-Blast nonabrasive blast finishing system to reinvigorate its tools.
Training, teamwork, and quality

Our next stop is Infinity’s breakroom. We pause to admire the company’s softball team awards on the far wall. The customer-satisfaction graphs are posted up front, along with customer report cards, plant metrics, and all the graphics necessary to keep everyone up to speed on Infinity’s performance.

(Top) Mitsubishi all-electric presses and Yushin servo robots are Infinity standards. (Middle) Some molds are superhardened to run exotic thermoplastic compounds. Systematic preventive maintenance supports mold life and part repeatability. (Bottom) Well-trained, well-equipped technicians help ensure Infinity’s well-earned quality reputation.

It’s obvious a lot more goes on in here than lunch. Monthly shift meetings convene here, as do numerous training sessions. “Reviews for our accountability teams are held here,” says Scott Hagan, director of quality systems. “Composed of hourly and salaried employees, these teams monitor and drive improvement of everything from inventory and quality to tooling. We also have a community service team for charities, elderly care, and local causes. And we regularly discuss how we can improve customer satisfaction. To do so, we survey our customers every year.”

Like the entire plant, Infinity’s quality lab is climate-controlled and extremely well-equipped. There’s a SmartScope noncontact CMM from Optical Gaging Products that Hagan says works well for small parts, a Hommel-Etamic America airflow tester, and an Omnimark moisture analyzer that runs checks on every startup.

The company also has a Tinius Olsen extrusion plastometer for melt flow testing, a color-matching system from Macbeth, a Chatillon tensile tester, an Ametek torque tester, and stress, fatigue, vibration, and thermal analysis systems (even a microscope for examining fine-tolerance parts)—everything needed to monitor consistent product performance.

All of its quality documentation is electronic, ensuring that only the most current documents are used. Infinity even has an electronic signoff and approval system for all of its documents. All machine operators have access to this system at their workcells. PPAP documentation and program launch records also are kept in the lab. A dedicated program manager is assigned at the inception of each program and a detailed APQP process ensures smooth new product launches.

“We perform quite a number of on-the-floor startup and in-process checks. We also do checkoff/signoffs at the end of each run,” Hagan explains. “Layered process audits are performed using multiple disciplines by everyone, including management.”

Experience matters

On our way back to the conference room, Crowdus says, “Many of our parts once required 100% testing. We’ve eliminated that by engineering it right the first time.” Infinity’s engineering resources include all the major CAD platforms.

“Education is something we value,” Carpenter says when we arrive. “At our monthly meetings, we discuss basic issues, such as, ‘This is what it costs us to ship a bad part,’ and ‘These are our customers’ problems.’ Real-world issues are covered.”

Performance incentives are added to base pay. Ash says Infinity also offers educational promotion incentives through opportunities provided by regional manufacturers’ associations and technical colleges. And Infinity maintains its large structure with a relatively small number of people. Typically one employee has a mix of specialties, and some of its 20-plus-year veterans brought their experience with them from other prominent regional and national firms. “Our successes are largely due to our combined experiences,” says Titzer.

What’s ahead? More robots, more lab equipment (including systems for materials verification), increasing its service to transplant automotive firms in the area, additional medical business, and, possibly, strategic alliances and acquisitions.

It has almost 14 acres of land available for plant expansion, but Carpenter says he does not intend to move above the 600-ton range with future investments. Instead, he plans to remain focused on technical products in which Infinity has the most experience.

“If you’re doing ‘me-too’ parts,” he says, “you need to be looking over your shoulder.”