Dynamic Tool to grow in product launch abilities with new facility

Dynamic Tool Corp. officials bought a former Kohl's Corp. credit and customer service facility in Menomonee Falls, Wis., for $4.3 million to accommodate growth spurred mainly by the medical market.

The 70,000-square-foot facility is in the same industrial park as the headquarters of the manufacturer of plastic injection molds for components for medical diagnostics, diabetic care and monitoring, packaging including caps, closures and dispensers, consumer products, personal care and dental instruments.

Founded in 1976, Dynamic Tool is known for tight-tolerance and high-cavitation tooling systems. In the last five years, the company also has expanded its engineering, design, machining, metrology and mold sampling capabilities.

The purchase of the former Kohl's structure will allow Dynamic Tool to build on its roles as a product development and launch partner, according to company officials.

But first the space, which previously housed expansive office and administrative activities, will be renovated and upgraded for manufacturing operations with material handling and machinery.

Since 2020, medical device and diagnostic components have made up a considerable portion of the company's product portfolio, according to President Steve Eberle.

"Because of our strong relationships with our customer's product development, project management and procurement teams, Dynamic experienced significant growth in the past 36 months, both because of, and despite, the COVID era," Eberle said in an email.

"While new product introductions slowed considerably for many markets in early 2000, health care saw unprecedented demand in several categories. Our engineering capabilities enabled expedited product development and production launch for several key customers," he said.

The former Kohl's site will provide the platform for expanded sampling and qualification services as well as the development of turnkey manufacturing cells, according to Ken Eberle, vice president of business development.

The ability to design and launch turnkey cells is especially important to Dynamic's customer base in the medical device and diagnostics markets, where annual part volumes in the millions is common.

Dynamic also offers short-run production molding and validation.

"Our ambition is to continue to grow our in-house capabilities to meet the objectives of our customers," Ken Eberle said in an email. "For components used in medical applications and in certain high volume packaging programs, that means delivering a thoroughly groomed mold with in-cycle process validation.

"That translates to available areas on our manufacturing floor dedicated to optimized injection molds running in modern injection molding machines with applicable ancillary equipment and integrated robotics — replicating the dedicated production and component-handling environment as required by our customers."

For many projects, injection mold development starts with a single cavity prototype, leading to a four cavity, then a proof-of-performance mold before multiple sets of high-cavitation injection molds.

While Dynamic builds many conventional injection molds for a single material and for molds with one to four cavities it has made tooling with as high as 512 cavities.

The company also provides sophisticated tooling systems, including multi-shot, insert, in-mold-decorating, stack, rotational stack, and molds with automated in-mold-closing features.

Customers in high-volume markets, such as medical device and consumer packaging, also want cycle time optimization strategies to be employed early in the tooling system design process, according to Dynamic officials.

To that end, they point to use of Sigmasoft brand virtual molding to facilitate the design and build of high-performance injection molds as well as the company's advanced process simulation capabilities for informed design considerations, especially regarding thermal control.

A few years ago, Dynamic also invested in a Sodick (OPM250L) metal 3D printer to create inserts for conforming cooling channels in high-performance and multiple-cavity tooling systems.

Dynamic has about 70 employees, including 30 mold makers, seven design engineers, two process simulation engineers, three process engineers and six project engineers.

The company currently is equipped with seven injection molding machines, including two Engel multi-shot presses and one portable unit to convert standard presses to multi-shot presses, for sampling, qualification and short-run production.