Plastikos wins Sustained Excellence Award

Plastikos Inc., a family-run custom injection molder in Erie, Pa., has won the Plastics News Sustained Excellence Award, which recognizes past winners of the Processor of the Year that have kept up their high performance levels in the years since.

Plastikos won Processor of the Year Award in 2010. The company focuses on electrical connectors molded with liquid crystal polymers, and medical products such as surgical devices, medical delivery systems, microfluidic pumps and eye care devices.

A sister company in Erie, Micro Mold Co. Inc., makes tooling.

Innovative Injection Technologies Inc. was a finalist for the Sustained Excellence Award.

Participants are asked to show proof of continued financial excellence, to describe one extraordinary development since winning Processor of the Year, and to name one key person, still at the company, who has played an important role in the firm's success.

Plastikos made a strong case for winning the Sustained Excellence Award, with solid progress in all three criteria.

Financially, Plastikos remains solid. Sales have grown by more than 50 percent since 2010, and the 2017 goal is $30 million. According to company officials, very strong growth with legacy customers, combined with the addition of new strategic medical accounts, has driven a rise in sales for four consecutive years. Plastikos remains profitable.

Compared to when it was the Processor of the Year award, Plastikos is a much more diverse plastics processor today. In 2010, just 4 percent of sales came from medical and 96 percent from connectors. But by 2016, medical accounted for 28 percent of sales.

Plastikos carries no debt and finances equipment purchases and facility upgrades through cash from operations. And the company has done a lot of expansion in the years since 2010. The big one: Building a 17,000-square-foot, Class 10,000 clean room complex housing eight Arburg injection molding machines. That $6 million investment began production in mid-2015.

The center has a dedicated medical mold changeover room and mold storage area, a medical-quality laboratory and a conference room. The result so far: annual sales of more than $1 million in new business with multiple global medical device customers, targeting diabetes care and insulin therapy, medication delivery and enteral feeding devices.

Since 2010, Plastikos has purchased 23 new injection molding machines, ranging in clamping force from 88 to 220 tons. Many are fully integrated with robots, RJG's eDart system to monitor mold cavity pressure, vision inspection systems and Husky hot runner controllers. The company has spent more than $5 million on new injection presses over the past seven years.

Plastikos has been standardizing on Arburg injection molding machines.

In 2014, Micro Mold and Plastikos claimed the No. 1 and No 2 places, respectively, in Plastics News' list of Best Places to Work in the Plastics Industry.

In its submission for the Sustained Excellence Award, Plastikos named three key employees: Steve Carr, toolroom manager; Chris Haines, engineering manager; and Rob Cooney, manufacturing manager.

Carr is one of the company's most veteran employees, working at Plastikos and Micro Mold for 34 years.

"Managing the tool room can be an extremely stressful and demanding position," the company said in its submission. An Erie native, Carr enjoyed machine shop in high school. After he graduated, he became a cook in the Coast Guard for four years. His father-in-law advised him to get into mold making as a career, not just a job. He signed on with Micro Mold in 1982 — even before Tim Katen and Dave Mead founded Plastikos in 1989. Ten years later, he was promoted to tool room manager, which he calls "my biggest success" and a position that allows him to teach young people the skills of machining and mold making.

Haines began at Micro Mold in 1991 as a mold designer, fresh out of Penn State Erie. He was promoted to engineering manager in 2010. To date, he has designed more than 250 injection molds. Today, he manages the engineering department at both Micro Mold and Plastikos. He is responsible for all new mold builds at Micro Mold.

Haines was named Mold Designer of the Year by the Society of Plastics Engineers in 2015. At the Erie companies, he coaches others how to properly design, build and troubleshoot molds.

The third key employee, Cooney, began as an intern at Pastikos in 1999, during his sophomore year at Penn State Erie. After he graduated, he worked at connector maker Samtec's Erie plant as a mold designer and product engineer. However, when he faced a decision to move to Samtec's headquarters in Indiana, he joined Plastikos as its first full-time plastics engineer in 2002. (Today, Plastikos has more than 15 engineers, many from the Penn State plastics program.)

In 2006, when part owner Gary McConnell announced he was going to retire, Plastikos tabbed Cooney to take his manufacturing manager post. Cooney became a part owner of Plastikos in 2009.

Here is Cooney's advice for the next generation: "If you truly want something, be prepared to earn it. Anything is possible with the right attitude and work ethic. When you put those things together, you will create your own opportunities."

Innovative Injection Technologies, a custom injection molder based in West Des Moines, Iowa, was a finalist for the Sustained Excellence award. i2Tech has had a solid record since winning Processor of the Year in 2007.

Ten years ago, i2Tech talked about three market segments: agricultural, recreational vehicle and industrial. Now the company is much more diversified, serving nine market segments including medical, lawn and garden, recreational vehicles, tractors and automotive.

The company in January announced an expansion project that includes adding six injection molding machines. President Josh Janeczko said the company needs the additional molding capacity to prepare for a rebound in the agricultural equipment market, including Deere & Co. Several years ago, Josh bought his father's share of the business, and Robert Janeczko remains as chairman.

The Great Recession and the ag market decline cut into sales, but the diversification moves helped i2Tech remain profitable.

In 2007, i2Tech ran 23 injection presses with clamping forces from 40 to 3,000 tons. Today the company has 30 presses, from 55 to 3,300 tons. The company has invested more than $11 million in new equipment since winning the Processor of the Year Award. The average age of machines is less than seven years.

The company named three key people. Chief Financial Officer Morgan Endecott has even worked on the shop floor when the small molder is extremely busy or shorthanded. "I2Tech has never lost money under Morgan's watch," Robert Janeczko said.

Other key employees include Maggie McCuen, the supply chain manager, who started as a buyer in 2004, and Brian Keller, i2Tech's John Deere account manager.