Growing into custom molding

Building a new business from the roots of a long-established company isn’t as easy as it may sound, yet it does offer certain added benefits. For Douglas Stephen, these benefits came in the form of proven sales and manufacturing skills, and an existing customer base—all of which played a key role in Stephen’s successful move into custom molding.

Stephen started the NMC Group in 1972, and built the company into a successful distribution business for specialty fasteners. He got into the molding game in 1983 with the purchase of a proprietary molder and distributor of clamps and wiring devices, predominantly for the aircraft industry.

Five years later, NMC added more molding machines and expanded to become a proprietary molder of specialty fastening products, including the Agfast line. These specialty fasteners are molded for the grape growing industry, which uses them to secure grape vines to their supports. “It’s a high-tech product for a low-tech industry,” says Stephen.

With its molding and distribution arms working together, NMC began to recognize the potential for new opportunities in the molding industry, specifically in custom molding. “Many of the manufacturers for whom we distribute product have a select criteria of either quantity or type of product that brought us additional business,” explains Stephen. “This opened up opportunities for custom molding, and provided an account base that most custom molders don’t start with.”

To take full advantage of this customer base, Stephen formed a new company, NMC Plastics, to act as the custom injection molding division of the NMC Group, which is headquartered in Monrovia, CA. “We’ve already acquired the competence and developed the expertise over the years,” says Stephen, “and we feel we can easily translate that from our proprietary business into a good custom molding business.”

Building on Success
Because NMC Plastics is new to the custom molding industry, Stephen believes the company will have at least one advantage over its competitors—no preconceived notion of how a custom molding business is supposed to operate. Instead, the new company can build on the strengths NMC has already developed in manufacturing and in inventory and distribution management. The new company has similar operating and profitability goals and will continue to take advantage of established practices to improve productivity and overall efficiency.

Today, NMC operates 16 injection molding machines, 15 of which are Arburgs from 28 to 200 tons. All are equipped with robotics to enhance productivity and efficiency. Stephen believes that the key to profitability in molding lies in using smaller molds in smaller-tonnage presses with no operator.

“Everything we do is geared toward eliminating operators,” he says. “That’s the only way to be competitive. Otherwise, it will go offshore or to Mexico.”

In fact, NMC often acquires molds and rebuilds them to eliminate the operator. For instance, a 76-cavity, operator-assisted mold for one of the company’s proprietary products was broken down into a 20-cavity mold designed to run automatically in a smaller press.

The company also evaluates the custom molds it runs to find ways to enhance the tools, optimizing productivity and efficiency. “We’re constantly going through jobs to see how we can enhance them to add value and profitability,” notes Stephen. “We’re not a cost-plus society anymore. We’re cost-sensitive.”

Adding Value
In addition to production molding, NMC Plastics has a mold maintenance and repair shop run with one moldmaker and an assistant. Stephen found that partnering with local mold shops to build new molds was more cost-effective, and eliminated the peaks and valleys typical of most mold shop business.

NMC also has extensive secondary operations. “You have to give more value to your customer in today’s environment,” says Stephen. “You have to grow with what’s happening out there, and watch for opportunities to provide new services and increase profitability.”

Stephen believes that entering the custom molding business was the next logical step for NMC—a response to customer demands and to Stephen’s vision for the company to be more than a distributor.

“You’re pulled to the next step by your customers,” says Stephen. “You respond appropriately. You can’t just sit back and wait for orders to come in.”