Focused on unusual work, thermoformer ShapeMaster tackles broad range of materials

ShapeMaster Inc. is expanding its production run capacity with the installation of a new computerized numerical control machining center.

The Ogden, Ill., company took delivery of a new Haas DM1 machining center in early January and is setting it up to create tooling and to trim thermoformed parts, ShapeMaster co-owner Ken Cooley said in a phone interview.

The Haas CNC will improve efficiency and flexibility, Cooley said.

“It is high speed with fast tool change and a small footprint,” Cooley said.

The new CNC is ShapeMaster's fifth and will relieve some of the pressure on the other machining centers that have been running in excess of 40 hours per week. The CNC machines and routers perform a wide range of tasks cutting plastic, foam, metal and wood for ShapeMaster's broad production strategies.

Cooley said his company delves into a broad range of materials and processes, “much broader than the usual thermoformer.”

In thermoforming, it does vacuum forming, pressure forming and drape forming. Alongside thermoforming, ShapeMaster can provide injection molded parts from the firm's 135-ton Nissei press installed two years ago. Some products combine thermoformed or molded plastics with components made of wood, metal or fabric. ShapeMaster can build its own injection tools in-house using its six CNC machining centers. It oursources complex tools.

One multimaterial example is a nutritional development chamber for piglets that ShapeMaster developed and married with technology from the University of Illinois.

The main chamber is vacuum-formed ABS. Doors are molded from polycarbonate. The product also incorporates fabric, so a sewing step is part of the assembly, along with adding metal parts. ShapeMaster has made hundreds of the specialized chambers, which have attracted interest worldwide. ShapeMaster markets the chambers globally and pays royalties to the University of Illinois.

“I get bored easily,” Cooley noted while explaining his interest in tackling unusual work. ShapeMaster typically launches three or four jobs a week, a pace that demands a sophisticated inventory system.

“One client might need 30,000 units while another only requires five assemblies,” Cooley said.

Cooley founded ShapeMaster in 1990 with his wife, Pam, and a minority investor who subsequently sold his interest to the Cooleys. Ken Cooley's background was in assembling commercial displays. Cooley was curious about the plastics that are the backbone of many displays so he took a class in thermoforming. By 1997, the new company took the plunge and acquired a Lyle heavy gauge thermoformer.

One of the biggest early jobs was making seed germination trays for Monsanto Co.'s agriculture business. ShapeMaster has thermoformed thousands of the trays from glycol-modified PET sheet for distribution around the world. Cooley designed the seedling trays and lids to resist heat and warping.

As business grew, ShapeMaster acquired two more thermoforming machines from Maac Machinery Corp. of Carol Stream, Ill. More recently, the firm designed its own thermoformer with manual operations to teach new employees about the process.

“This allows our new recruits to learn plastic molding without just pushing buttons,” Cooley explained.

Cooley prefers new employees use manually operated mills, lathes and thermoformers before they tackle computerized controls.

“This makes the operator a more well-rounded individual,” according to Cooley.

“We take machinists who cut steel and aluminum all their life and who hated plastics, and make them a lover of plastic molding because I teach them from the ground up and don't just dump them on a machine and make them a ‘button pusher,' Cooley said.

As the 21-employee company grows, it will soon garner ISO 9001 certification. A consulting firm has begun the process with ShapeMaster, and Cooley expects certification will be done by the end of this year.

What started out as a prototype shop for packaging development has evolved into a company that takes charge in projects that require plastic thermoforming and a facility with other processes and materials.