Kickstart: How to revitalize North American manufacturing; a closer look at Krones, Netstal

Laurie Harbour and Scott Walton, two experts who are well known to Plastics News readers, have just released a new book with ideas to help small and midsized manufacturers become more competitive.

Their book, Tradition Meets Transformation, sounds the alarm on the urgent need for North American manufacturing leadership to keep pace with the rapid changes in competition, economics and technology.

They also argue that there's an urgent need to prepare a new generation of capable leaders.

"Scott and Laurie capture the essence of adaptability and growth strategies for manufacturing executives in a business landscape that will continue to rapidly change," said MAPP CEO Troy Nix.

Harbour and Walton own Harbour Results Inc. HRI was established 15 years ago to help manufacturers transform operations through financial and operation improvements. The book is published with Forbes Books, the exclusive business book publishing imprint of Forbes, and is available on Amazon.

Harbour will also be a keynote speaker at the 2024 PN Executive Forum.

Hasco Hasenclever GmbH & Co. KG, a pioneering maker of mold tooling components based in Lüdenscheid, Germany, is celebrating a big milestone this year: a 100th birthday. There aren't many 100-year-old companies in plastics, which is still a relatively young sector.

The company's history is closely linked to plastics. It started in 1924, when company founder Hugo Hasenclever built the first molds for processing Bakelite in a cellar workshop. His son Rolf invented and patented a system for standard mold units, paving the way for Hasco to become a global company.

Hasco America Inc., based in Fletcher, N.C., is on our Best Places to Work list again this year. The company is known for a culture that's very much like a family, and the team proudly carries that same approach to its customers.

Catherine Kavanaugh put together a really fascinating breaking news story on Monday on German packaging and bottle machine manufacturer Krones AG acquiring Swiss injection press supplier Netstal Machinen AG for 170 million euros ($183.7 million).

On Wednesday, she updated the story with even more exclusive information about Netstal's current owner, KraussMaffei Technologies GmbH.

Kavanaugh has been following the Netstal story since 2021, when KM announced it was making Netstal an independent unit. Officials insisted that move did not mean the business was for sale, but PN was reporting – often exclusively – details of a proposed sale to Switzerland-based Benpac Holding AG.

Benpac was in the process of putting together a packaging machinery holding company that included a wide variety of manufacturing technologies, including mold making, injection molding and blow molding.

Read Kavanaugh's coverage details on how that turned out. It's interesting to me that now Krones seems to have the same idea in mind – in this case, adding machinery to mold preforms and caps to its existing capabilities in blow molding, filling and recycling containers.