After 18 years in the market, Organizacón Brenn SA de CV can reveal what it takes to survive as a plastics processor in Mexico: versatility.
Based on the northern edge of Mexico City, the injection molder has as many as 15 steady customers and has grown, on average, 13 percent a year, said commercial manager Eric Brenn. He would not disclose sales.
Products vary from lids for paint buckets to personal-care products and precision engineered parts. When one sector is in a downturn, another invariably is on the rise, he said.
``This has always been my father's strategy and it has worked well over the years,'' Brenn said. His father, Rainer Brenn is president of the firm.
Eric, 38, is an industrial engineer like his father - a Swiss citizen who founded Organizacón Brenn after a 20-year career with global aluminum giant Alcan Inc.
As many as 1,000 processors have gone bust in Mexico in recent years because they have put too much of their work into one business, according to Eric Brenn.
``A company I heard about in Guadalajara went broke because of a bad deal with a major Tier 1 supplier to the automotive industry. They had nothing to fall back on,'' Bren said, declining to disclose the company's name. ``I have been offered work by large auto industry suppliers but have turned it down. Our strategy is to consolidate the markets we serve in Mexico.''
The company also is eyeing the U.S. as a possible export market, though such a move is not imminent, Brenn said.
The firm employs 30 and operates 10 Nissei injection molding machines, from 110-180 tons. Its last press purchase was in 2006.
Eric Brenn is vice president of Mexico's National Association of Plastics Industries' (Anipac) molders section and is charged with increasing Anipac membership among molders.
``There are as many as 3,500 molders in the country and only 100 of them belong to the association,'' he said.