Talent Talk: How’s business at KraussMaffei, Paul Caprio?

Last week  I spoke with Paul Caprio, president of KraussMaffei Corp. in Florence, Kentucky. Likely KraussMaffei needs no introduction to readers on the PlasticsToday.com site, as the company is one of the world's leading manufacturers of injection molding, extrusion, and reaction process machinery, marketing its equipment and services to processors around the globe.

Mr. Caprio is very busy, as you can imagine, but I happened to catch him with a little time to chat as he was traveling back from a customer visit. This particular customer visit illustrates some of the interesting dynamics going on in the plastics marketplace today. A Chinese-owned company, it is opening a plant in Michigan that will supply U.S. automakers, along the way employing U.S. workers and buying U.S.-built equipment.

When I asked how business is in general, Caprio replied, "Our business is outstanding; manufacturing is as healthy as I've seen it, maybe ever. Our 2008 orders were a record level for us, and we have now fully recovered to those levels."

Perhaps even better, it doesn't appear to be just a spike caused by deferred orders. Business looks strong going forward for KraussMaffei, at least as far as their headlights allow them to see. "I fully expect 2012 to be as strong as 2011", said Caprio. "During the height of the 2009 recession, analysts predicted it would take 3-5 years to get to (back to) this point in plastics machinery sales."

With the exception of housing-related markets, where the analysts appear to have gotten it right, all end markets are strong. Caprio explains, "Packaging was consistently strong for us, even during the downturn. Now, the automotive sector is red-hot. We are benefitting from model changes as carmakers move to lighter, more fuel efficient models, and to electric vehicles." Caprio added that resin manufacturers and compounders are also buying, creating demand on the extrusion side of the company's business.

KraussMaffei has been selectively hiring. In a recent post I stirred up a little controversy when I said that we should tell kids to pursue business and technical degrees ("Pursue what you love? Wrong, pursue what pays the bills"). When I asked Mr. Caprio what types of people he needs, I held my breath, because I knew if he said "more people with literature and political science degrees" I would have to admit I was wrong. Fortunately for me, it turns out KraussMaffei has the hardest time finding qualified engineers.

When I asked Mr. Caprio about challenges facing his business, such as raw material prices, competition from low-cost countries, regulation, currency fluctuations, consumer demand, and debt problems, he laughed and said, "That's a pretty good list; I'd say all of the above. But I don't worry about things that are out of my control. That's how I sleep at night." Good advice even if you're not running a plastics machinery company.

I want to thank Paul for his time, and for sharing more good news for our industry. If you would like to keep this ball rolling and share some good news about your company in a future blog, please contact me. For bad news, well, you know how I feel about that.

About the author: Paul Sturgeon is business manager with KLA Industries based in Cincinnati, OH, an executive search firm specializing in plastics and polymer technology. If you have a topic you'd like to see discussed, a company that is growing, or other ideas for his blog, e-mail Paul at mailto:[email protected].