IMM's 10th Anniversary series: Forecast for change

From this plant’s start as a thriving contract manufacturer and molder specializing in computer equipment, Mack Molding has refashioned its corporate headquarters to take advantage of today’s changing business climate.

When IMM first visited Mack’s Arlington, VT corporate headquarters in July 1996, the plant was just two years old and buzzing with activity. In the molding room, 12 Engel presses pumped out parts to a conveyor that fed assembly lines. Most assembly operations concentrated on workstations, disk drives, and storage devices for Sun, Hewlett-Packard, and other IT giants.

Today, the plant still hums along, but the tunes, and the markets Mack serves, have changed. While parts for IT equipment are still being produced, the assembly work is now mainly in the hands of companies such as Flextronics, Solectron, and Celestica. In its place is a host of different applications that make use of plant resources and employee experience.

Instead of reacting to the change in business climate, Mack was prepared for it, and had made adjustments prior to the exodus of IT work. “In a particularly painful strategy planning session in 1999,” says Jeff Somple, president of Mack’s Northern Div., “we all agreed that consumer electronics and IT were either going to mega-contract manufacturers or offshore for lower labor and tax rates. We decided to concentrate our resources on opportunities that make sense for us among companies who will still be manufacturing in the U.S. in the foreseeable future.”

To make sense, the jobs needed to take advantage of Mack’s strengths—design, prototyping, large-part molding, overmolding, inmold decorating, and painting, to name a few. Markets that fit the criteria for future manufacturing in the U.S. included medical, office furniture, and industrial.

Underlying the successful transformation of this plant was a strong financial picture and a conservative fiscal outlook. Mack is a privately held business owned by Don Kendall III, a third-generation descendant of its founder. In its 83-year history, the business has never gone in the red, maintains zero debt, and continues to carry cash reserves. Mack Molding now has 10 locations worldwide, including Northern and Southern Divs., Mack Prototype, Mack Technologies, and Mack Design.

Different Drummer

Changes at the Arlington headquarters facility since 1996 are not confined to the parts being produced. In 1997, at the height of demand for IT products, Mack combined a phase two and three expansion, adding more than 150,000 sq ft for a combined 310,000-sq-ft total, all paid for in cash. Some of the real estate was allocated to 18 new Engels, for a total of 30 presses ranging from 50 to 1000 tons.

Mack also acquired prototyping capabilities by purchasing Apple Pattern and one of the Compression facilities to create Mack Prototype. This arm has a combined 75,000 sq ft and produces prototype tooling, parts, and SLA models. Today, this division provides services for existing customers and also serves as a lead generator for Mack Molding.

To support projects under way, Mack created an application development team composed of design, processing, and tooling engineers working together to expedite tool builds and sampling. In two weeks’ time, this group sampled and approved 50 tools.Within the newly expanded plant, a sheet metal fabrication center was added to create storage cabinets and sheet metal inserts for business equipment. Rather than purchase existing shops, Mack hired experienced metalworkers, purchased a laser press, and has since added state-of-the-art plasma welding equipment.

Today, the sheet metal center produces a line of proprietary rack-mountable cabinetry for telecom equipment, customized to order. Within hours, a new design can be programmed into the laser press, cut, and assembled.

A new two-shot machine, also an Engel, afforded technicians a chance to gain expertise in overmolding. That experience is being put to use molding back covers for Abbott Lab’s glucose meter products, which combine an ABS substrate with a TPE overmold in a 2x2 rotating platen mold. Inmold decorating, another specialty acquired for the IT industry, has also found a fit in this device, which requires IMD front covers as well.

Agile Competitor

“We’re looking for the jobs that are hard to do—that need experienced people, state-of-the-art equipment, and a financially sound supplier, because those are our strengths,” Somple says. So far, it appears these types of jobs are plentiful. In the past nine months, Mack has built 230 new tools, which will go into production here this year.

One of the toughest jobs the plant has taken on comes from long-time customer Therakos. After molding disposable PC blood filter plates for several years for this company’s Uvar XTS system, Mack was asked to take on assembly of the product. It collects a patient’s blood, segregates white blood cells, photoactivates them with UV energy, and then returns the treated blood to the patient. It treats T-cell lymphoma, and could possibly be used to fight HIV and arthritis.

Two years of preparation and commitment ended this past fall, when Mack received FDA approval to assemble the device. There are currently three build stations, and each unit is assembled from scratch using more than 200 purchased components, the disposable plates, and a sheet metal chassis fabricated in the plant. It began as a low-volume application, but with a second-generation unit coming soon, volumes will increase significantly.

In another major investment in time and capital, a new $1 million automated paint line at the nearby East Arlington Rd. facility produces overhead doors for office furniture. Together with a workcell that molds and welds the doors, the line contains robotic sanding and three paint coats—primer, smooth, and texture—along with curing ovens.

Also, although Lego has taken most of its molding back to Denmark, Mack continues to produce and assemble large parts such as play tables. Parts are molded in parallel on 500- and 750-ton presses, and then assembled and boxed for retail shipment.

“Change is always a given,” says Somple. “The difference between success and failure lies in how a company addresses it.” For Mack’s Arlington plant, saying yes to opportunities that make sense in light of its capabilities has made all the difference.