Customer focus pays off for Plastek Industries

Hamlet, N.C. — 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.

In 2018, Plastek Industries Inc. took customer service to a new level, working to reduce its carbon footprint on behalf of its blue-chip consumer product customers.

For the effort, Erie, Pa.-based Plastek is the winner of the 2018 Plastics News Excellence Award for customer relations.

This year the Plastics News judges visited Plastek's Hamlet plant, a highly automated factory devoted to a single customer. The 49 presses are all high speed, high cavitation, and unmanned automated guide vehicles buzz around the plant, delivering molded parts to the machines.

Julie Macpherson, quality manager at the plant, said worker training is a constant focus.

"Our customers, the expectation is zero defects," Macpherson said. "Training is a lot of hands-on on the floor."

Aaron Doehrel, general manager, said training in Hamlet extends to the college level, just as it does at the company's headquarters in Erie, Pa.

"We do a lot of things with RCC [Richmond Community College], as far as training. We pay people to go to be trained. I don't know of too many companies that do that," Doehrel said.

Plastek has many Fortune 500 customers, including Procter & Gamble Co., Unilever, Revlon Inc. and Church & Dwight Co. Inc. The molder and mold maker specializes in personal care products, including deodorant sticks, caps, cosmetic containers and other thin-wall parts.

According to the company, the normal scrap rate in the sector is between 3-5 percent. But it has been able to achieve a 2.5 percent rate thanks to increased use of automation and manufacturing integration and intelligence systems on all of its molding machines.

Plastek also said its customers have requested information about its carbon footprint for several years. So Plastek has hired a firm that specializes in that area and has worked with the firm to gather detailed carbon disclosure information.

"As we began to gather this information, we realized we could do more and we have been working companywide to improve. Many customers ask what we are doing to reduce our carbon footprint and we can provide our CDP rating to them," Plastek officials told Plastics News.

One area where it will be investing in the future: replacing hydraulic injection molding machines with more efficient electric presses.

Plastek has earned a reputation for designing innovative products for its customers. One recent example: It came up with a childproof closure for Arm & Hammer laundry pods, made by Church & Dwight Co. Inc. The part won innovation awards at the Plastics News Plastics Caps and Closures conference as well as the EastPack trade show.

Plastek also has been named a Unilever Partner to Win four times. The Unilever award recognize value creation, capacity and capability building, sustainability and business integration.

2018 marks the third time that Plastek has won a PN Excellence Award. In 2016, Plastek won the PN Excellence Award for industry and public service, and in 2017 it won the customer relations award. This marks the first time that a company has been a repeat winner in that category.

Plastek's history dates back to 1956, when Joseph Prischak started Triangle Tool. Injection molding and assembly followed in 1971. Prischak retired from day-to-day operations in 2002, but he remains as chairman. The company is still family owned, and four of Prishak's sons are in key roles: Dennis is president and CEO, Daniel is vice president of manufacturing, Douglas is vice president of global tooling and engineering and Donald is vice president of sales.

Once again this year, Plastics News judges gave Plastek good grades for technology, industry and public service, employee relations, customer relations and quality.

"We're very much a family-oriented business that cares about family values, for ourselves and our employees," Douglas Prischak said. "I think the culture here is one of ambition and drive. I think a lot of our employees have that ambition and drive. Maybe it stems from the fact that my father was always on the go and a lot of the employees would see him walking around at midnight or 1 in the morning and still working hard."