Erie, Pa. — A company that injection molds more than 11 billion parts a year and has a 99 percent on-time delivery rate is doing customer relations right.
Plastek Industries Inc. has won the Plastics News Excellence Award for Customer Relations.
Plastek, based in Erie, has many Fortune 500 customers, including Procter & Gamble Co., Unilever, Revlon Inc. and Church & Dwight Co. Inc.
Personal care products account for 67 percent of its business — millions of deodorant sticks, caps, cosmetic and other thin-wall parts on more than 350 injection molding machines, running multicavity molds that Plastek builds in-house.
The rest of the company's business is split evenly among food and beverage, medical and home care/industrial.
The level of automation is high, including more than 35 automated assembly machines. Plastek also claims an excellent quality level of less than 100 defective parts per million.
These days, as they say, quality is a given.
But Plastek, owned by the Prischak family, also excels in helping these companies design new products. One recent example: developing a childproof lid for Arm & Hammer concentrated laundry pods, for Church & Dwight. The two-part enclosure requires adults to squeeze two tabs on the outside and turn at the same time.
Plastek molds the closure, which won the Plastics Caps & Closures Innovation Award at a Plastics News conference last year and an Innovation Award at the EastPack trade show.
Unilever presented Plastek a Partner to Win award for value creation last year. And Unilever has named Plastek a Partner to Win in 2011, 2013 and 2015 in several other categories.
Mold building expertise is a major advantage for Plastek and how its founder, Joseph Prischak, originally got into the business.
Plastek builds its molds to last, and the company handles all maintenance. Customers never receive a bill for maintenance of a Plastek-made mold. Each molding operation has its own dedicated tool shop, staffed on all three shifts, so they can handle any issues, any time of the day or night.
"They're top-notch in mold building — one of the top mold builders in North America and also globally," said a buyer at one customer.
Plastek was a finalist for this year's Plastics News Processor of the Year award. Customers told the judges the company stands behind its work and helps to streamline production. And last year, Plastek won the PN Excellence Award for Industry and Public Service.
Since 2003, Plastek has hosted hundreds of customers at its headquarters plant for courses in "Injection Molding 101." Customers get some hands-on experience with molds and molding machines.
That shows Plastek is a molding expert to these big consumer products companies — a valuable partner.
