CASE STUDY:

Aashish Chopra, Julio Ortic and Ankur Jain

CUSTOM MOLDS, INC.
1987
Founded by father/son team Tom and Mason Miller
Custom design molds for plastic parts and custom made plastic
connectors

Mid 1990's
Building on its reputation decided to expand into a limited
manufacturer of plastic parts

Early 2009
Changing industry
Manufacturers developing strategic partnerships with parts
suppliers
PROCESS FLOW CHART
Mold Fabrication Process
PROCESS FLOW CHART
Plastic Parts - Mold Already Made

ISSUES
Changing market environment
Mold market in mature phase
Plastic parts in growth phase

0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
Molds Plastic Parts
Chart Title
2006 2007 2008
Competitive Priorities

Custom mold
Lead time not critical
Quality is very important in meeting demand specifications
Typically not price sensitive
Low volume
Plastic parts
Lead time critical
Quality very important
Price sensitive
High volume
ALTERNATIVES
1. Discontinue custom mold fabrication and shift their focus to plastic parts
production.
1. require increasing the space dedicated to plastic parts production or adding additional
space
2. This choice will require commitment to expand resources and maintain delivery reliability.
2. move back to the focus on molds.
1. this requires moving against the apparent trend in the industry
2. Price competition may become the primary factor in industry competition

3. Other alternatives
1. Reduce emphasis on mold fabrication
2. Restructure plant layout
3. Increase part production capacity
4. Change pricing to reflect changing market
1. Offer larger bulk discounts for plastic parts
5. Flexible workforce - make sure any machinist can work on any job
6. Review quality control processes
INITIAL VS. PROPOSED LAYOUT
CLEAR RECOMMENDATIONS
Improve Lead Times
There are only four weeks (maximum) accounted for in the
process chart for mold production and a nine week lead time
quoted.
o Flexibility exist with process and with customers expectations.
o Leverage this flexibility to improve plastic part deliveries

Company was historically driven by custom molds.
o Plastic parts production is not being allocated its due time.

Maximize use of time of injection machines (capacity=5000/day)
o Proper scheduling needs to take place to allocate time for small (0-500), large (500-
5000) and custom mold testing.
Operations before and after injection machine is a day or
two so bottleneck is with machine itself.
Clear Recommendations
Eliminate one machinist
Custom Mold, Inc. operated with overtime staffing in 2006 and 2007
for mold manufacturing
2008 volumes allows for elimination of one master machinist.
Currently being reassigned to help expedite other functions
Order Size Total Molds 2006 Total Molds 2007 Total Molds 2008
1 80 74 72
2 120 140 150
3 120 153 165
4 20 24 20
5 15 25 20
6 24 48 30
7 14 0 7
8 80 48 32
9 99 72 45
10 150 100 50
Total: 722 684 591
Available
Capacity
(250 days/year,
5 days/mold,
13 machinists)
650 650 650
CLEAR RECOMMENDATIONS

Revise block layout
Improve closeness factor of key groups
Allocate more space to injection machine
Acquire more injection machines to increase capacity
Reduce space for mold fabrication
Review and focus on who their customer base is
Market to other customer base to increase plastic part manufacturing business if now
equipped to handle it.
They should create a subsidiary for plastic part manufacturing (Plastic Parts, Inc.) and
operate them as more distinct business but under one roof.
Renewed focus on quality
Improved scheduling time and better layout should open up possibilities and time for
quality measures to be put in place.
3rd party quality audit.

DETAILED NEXT STEPS
Implement Recommendations
Continued review of process flow and process layout
In the future, Custom Molds may consider moving testing to
a more central location to mitigate back and forth time
between departments.
o Cost prohibitive at this point.
o We are not recommending this immediately due to uncertain
costs associated with retro-fitting and plumbing