Kickstart: Honoring processor excellence

We're less than a month away from announcing the finalists for the Plastics News Processor of the Year award. Narrowing down the list of nominees to just a handful of finalists is never easy, but I can't remember it ever being this difficult.

We got a lot of very well-qualified companies, so quantity alone makes 2021 an excellent year. The quality of the entries is also outstanding.

Something that stood out in the 2020 awards was the way the companies responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. That was a difficult year, but our finalists, including winner Plastek Industries, really stepped up, staying open, making much-needed PPE and other products, and keeping workers safe.

I think people will forget over time, but 2020 was a pre-COVID-vaccine year. These companies stayed open just using best practices like cleaning, social distancing, temperature taking, testing and quarantining. It was an amazing effort.

I'm not going to let the cat out of the bag and disclose the identity of the finalists yet — that will come Jan. 10. We'll announce the big winner at the 2021 Executive Forum, set for March 21-23 in Naples, Fla. We will also profile the winner and other finalists in our April 4 and April 11 print editions.

Our Processor of the Year award is open to North American companies, but I'm also the judge for another Processor of the Year contest overseas. The Plastics Industry Awards are open to companies in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

We had four finalists for the 2021 PIA Processor of the Year: ICL Tech Ltd., an innovative thermoformer and fabricator in Glasgow, Scotland; Pentagon Plastics Group Ltd., a technical injection molder and toolmaker in Horsham, England; Plastek UK Ltd., a packaging molding specialist and a unit of Erie, Pa.-based Plastek Group; and Rutland Plastics, a privately owned injection molder in Oakham, in England's East Midlands.

Rutland Plastics was the winner. The company excelled in numerous areas including community relations, employee relations, COVID response, sustainability, customer relations, quality — really, the company had an all-around fantastic year.

Community relations is a particular strength for Rutland Plastics, it goes back to the foundation of the company 65 years ago and is ingrained in the culture. Company owner Stuart Johnston told me that he wants to provide stable employment and knows that he needs to engage with the community to be successful.

If you think the past year has been difficult for North American plastics processors, with supply chain woes and resin pricing spikes, imagine being a U.K. processor, dealing with those same issues plus the headaches of Brexit.

Through it all, Rutland Plastics is growing; the company added three new molding machines in 2021 and now has 31 presses, up from 24 machines in 2008. The company also added a dedicated weekend shift this year, so for the first time in its history it is a 24/7 production operation. I felt that Rutland Plastics has a solid long-term strategy and is well positioned for growth and to adapt to the changing market in the United Kingdom.

Johnston himself told me: "This is a good time to be in manufacturing. Manufacturing in the U.K. has hit rock bottom in the past. Now it's on the way up."

I don't watch a lot of NFL on television, so maybe I'm late to notice this, but I was impressed when I recently caught a commercial for Stihl Inc., a manufacturer of outdoor power equipment with a German parent company.

Stihl Inc.'s captive molding operations in Virginia Beach, Va., was the winner of our 2014 Plastics News Processor of the Year award. The highly automated factory was one of the most impressive I've ever visited, and the company also has a strong apprenticeship program.

The Stihl TV commercial that I saw recently highlighted that the company's products are made in the United States. I recognized the Virginia Beach factory in some of the shots.

The Stihl ad reminded me of the commercials for MacNeil Automotive Products Ltd. that show plastic machinery making its WeatherTech products in Bolingbrook, Ill. I used to get a kick out of David MacNeil's ads in automotive enthusiast magazines that touted his Ontario-made injection molding machines and Illinois-made thermoformers.