Custom Molds Inc Case Study

1.0 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Overview of Custom Molds Inc.

Custom Molds Inc is a company that manufactures custom-designed moulds for plastic parts and also produces custom-made plastic connectors for the electronic industry. Its main objective is to provide manufacturers of electronic connectors with a source of high quality, custom designed moulds for producing plastic parts. Its business bloomed and it expanded in the year 1990 to limited manufacture of plastic parts, adding more ingredient mixing facilities and injection moulding equipment.

Due to its limited capacity, it concentrated its efforts on supplying parts that were used in limited quantities for Research and Development efforts and in preproduction pilot-runs.

The production process consists of 2 distinct processes fabricating moulds and producing plastic parts. Single facility for both processes and it has a typical job shop layout, similar process and equipment are grouped in one place.

The mould fabrication process consists of a design team of a design engineer and also one of 13 master machinists. Raw material lead time for this process is 3 to 4 weeks. Fabricating time for a mould is 2 to 4 weeks. This depends on the complexity of the order placed. To fabricate one mould it takes 3 to 5 days. The delivery lead time for this process is 9 weeks.

The plastic parts process is also managed by a design engineer. The raw material lead time takes 1 week and the mixing process takes 1 day plus inspection and packaging takes 1 day each. 5000 parts per day are produced in the injection moulding section. Delivery lead time takes 1 week with a tolerance of 2 or 3 days depending on with or without assembly of parts.

1.2 Major Issues Facing Custom Molds Inc

The changing style of business affected the Custom Molds company. They came to a realization that, traditionally manufacturers manufactured their own parts to reduce costs and to ensure timely supply of parts. They found out that this trend was changing. Now, manufacturers make strategic partnerships with parts suppliers to ensure timely delivery of high quality and cost effective parts. By doing it this way, the manufacturers could divert their funds for R&D. They realize that the customers don’t buy moulds but order parts. In the 2 tables given we can see that Table 1 which shows the order for mould fabrication, the orders for mould fabrication remains constant but orders for multiple mould orders have declined. On the other hand in Table 2 which shows the production of plastic parts, the number of orders per year have declined. However, multiple parts orders have increased.

Since then, they have encountered numerous problems. The major issue was delivery problems. There was a complaint placed that part ordered were taking 4 to 5 weeks instead of 3 weeks.