Mar-Lee Companies, Fitchburg, MA

John Gravelle, president of Mar-Lee Companies, an $18 million sales-per-year injection molder, was in France two months ago pitching a multimillion-unit job to a French OEM looking for high-tech packaging. Mar-Lee molded 60 million lids with inmold labels last year and expects to do 75 million this year.

Though many moldmakers and molders in the United States are hors de combat, Mar-Lee has found a prescription for success: automation, technology, and specialization. And not any customers will do. Gravelle seeks the crème de la crème.

It’s not unusual to see enormous investment in automated systems at huge captive molders. But a small custom molder? Late last year, Mar-Lee began producing containers with spring-loaded lids. Robots pull lids from 750-ton Engel presses, orient them, and assemble them. Springs are fed from a huge vibratory bowl, custom built for the project.

“Our labor input today is probably 60% of what it was in 1990,” comments Gravelle. “If you go back to 1990, we had two operators per machine producing 10 million units. Now a machine is up to 20 million units.”

Mar-Lee’s goal is to offer the most cost-effective approach available. “One of my customers had a part quoted in China, India, and in the United States,” comments Gravelle. “We were able to get the program because we automated all of the labor out of the process. The other molders bidding on the product were going to mold the part, inventory the parts, and then feed them through a label machine as a secondary operation.”

Mar-Lee walked away from millions of dollars’ worth of consumer product molding that was commodity oriented, replaced it with specialty packaging, and still grew the business. “We wanted to get away from the old custom molding business where a customer sent you a set of molds and the only commitment you got was the last purchase order,” says Gravelle. “Now we want to have a contract with a minimum of three years’ term. We tell prospective customers we will make a commitment to their product and develop a high-quality process at a very competitive price. But there must be minimum-quantity commitments.”

Mar-Lee is also focusing on advanced medical molding, and is one of a handful of American molders working with bioabsorbable polylactic acid (PLA) for implantable devices, notably anchor screws. PLA is derived from the fermentation of agricultural byproducts such as corn starch or other starch-rich substances like maize, sugar, or wheat. Not surprisingly, PLA can degrade quickly and requires specialized tooling and processing know-how. Mar-Lee says its sales to medical customers are expected to grow $2.5 million this year.

Mar-Lee is primarily an Engel house when it comes to its molding machinery. On the moldmaking side, Mar-Lee has invested in new wire EDM equipment. The company recently restructured its mold shop, moving to work cells in a lean system.

One of the reasons for Mar-Lee’s success is its view of the importance of mold technology. Many OEMs will shop the world for the lowest-priced tool and then ship it to the lowest-priced molder, who must make it work on a cost-effective basis. Gravelle’s approach is to take on the whole responsibility and deliver the most cost-effective part over a multiyear period. Focus on finished part cost and quality, rather than the cost of each step: it’s a similar approach to one used successfully by Japanese OEMs such as Toyota and Honda. Gravelle doesn’t care if a mold he builds could be sourced for half the price in China. “We can easily amortize the cost of the tool over the life of the job, and come out ahead,” he says.

Across North America, molding machines are often idle, or being auctioned off. Too many molders are offering low machine hourly rates to fill idle equipment rather than repositioning for the future. They’re focused on solving their own problems rather than their customers’.

Mar-Lee took a different tack. “We’re starting the year very optimistically and we think it will be strong,” Gravelle says.