Kickstart: Back to an 'old-school' show at MD&M West

One of the first major trade shows of the year for the plastics industry is underway in California, and things are off to a strong start.

PN's Sarah Kominek is at MD&M West in Anaheim, where she writes that it is bustling with exhibitors and attendees following slower events in 2021 and 2022 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

This year, attendees have specific interests and are ready with new projects compared with the last couple of years, exhibitors told her.

"The show 'feels old-school,'" Kelly Wessner, general manager at polymer distributor Formerra, told PN. "Everybody is here. The suppliers are all here; customers are here. Getting back to the critical mass here is fantastic."

Mack Molding Co. saw a "near record" number of leads on the first day of the show, Larry Hovish, director of communications at Mack, said.

Watch for Sarah's coverage from MD&M in the coming weeks.

How hard will it be for independent mold making shops to maintain that status in the coming years? I ask because the tooling industry has been seeing a rapid expansion of private equity groups acquiring mold making shops as new manufacturing platforms, among them SyBridge Technologies, Westfall Technik and Adler Industrial Solutions, which purchased R&D/Leverage in 2022.

Now publicly traded Berry Global Group Inc. has formalized a new consolidated internal approach to mold making with the launch of Berry Global Tooling Services, uniting previous acquisitions in tools for injection molding, blow molding, thermoforming and compression molding.

"Many companies rely on independent tooling shops to develop their tooling as it requires a niche skill set and understanding of regional packaging regulations," Kevin Pennington, vice president of Berry's Global Tooling and Automation, said in a news release. "Berry ... eliminates the need for a third-party tooling manufacturer by providing a one-stop shop for tooling ... at a global scale with regional expertise."

That's not to say that these new multifacility tooling firms are intentionally trying to put small shops out of business, but it would seem that it's going to be harder for a business with less than $20 million in revenue and one shop with fewer than 50 employees — the bulk of U.S. toolmakers — may find it harder to compete.

A part-time beekeeper and "white hat hacker" — those are two descriptions we don't use very often at Plastics News — may have saved Toyota Motor Corp. and its suppliers a lot of headaches.

Our sister paper Automotive News has the story of Eaton Zveare, a 29-year-old from Sarasota, Fla., who discovered he could access Toyota's global supplier management web portal by mimicking an email with an "@Toyota.com" address.

The portal is used by the automaker and its suppliers to coordinate projects, distribute parts and purchases and other tasks related to its global supply chain.

The email he created did not require a separate password or access code. Toyota officials told AN that it quickly acted on his tip about the vulnerability.

The breach did not affect any Toyota customers, the carmaker said.