Macomb, Mich. — PTI Engineered Plastics Inc. offers a lot to customers: production of complex parts, prototyping and product development.
The Macomb-based custom injection molder stays in its lane, serving medical and automotive customers with tight-tolerance, complex parts. The top 10 customers have been with PTI for more than 20 years. Not many molders can say that. PTI also gets new customers by exhibiting at half a dozen trade shows a year.
Now PTI has won the Plastics News Excellence Award for Customer Relations. The company also was a finalist for the Processor of the Year Award.
PTI employs 365 people and runs 54 injection molding machines, topping out at 750 tons of clamping force. For medical molding, PTI has 4,000 square feet of Class 8 clean room space and 5,000 square feet of controlled environment operations. The Macomb factory's total size is 160,000 square feet.
PTI, founded in 1984 by Mark Rathbone, himself a mold maker, runs a 49-person tool shop to go with 54 injection molding machines. Rathbone said the big mold making operation is critical for his company's strengths of speed and accuracy.
Contacted by the Plastics News judges, customers agreed. "Working with their tool room is fantastic," one said.
Customers praised PTI for fast turnaround, excellent on-time delivery and fast response to any problems. They said PTI can respond quickly to engineering changes. And they told the judges they consider PTI to be the plastics expert, as the company helps design new plastic products for manufacturability.
Another strength is process validation, important for the medical market.
PTI keeps close tabs on quality, closely monitoring production and benchmarking industry standards. And the company has cut its cost of quality in half since 2014 — both for internal defects but the even-more-important external defects, or bad parts shipped out to customers. That's even more impressive because half of all molded parts get some value-added content, such as welding, pad printing or laser marking.
According to company officials, in 2017, PTI was one of the first of all U.S. companies to achieve certification in ISO 13485:2016 for medical and IATF 16949:2015 for automotive. PTI also is certified to MedAccred, a process certification audit for medical devices.
And PTI has two well-equipped suites off the molding floor for customers who want to be in the plant for mold trials or product development — an office home away from home.
PTI founder Mark Rathbone, himself a mold maker, runs a 49-person tool shop to go with 54 injection molding machines.
PTI employs 365 people and runs 54 injection molding machines, topping out at 750 tons of clamping force. For medical molding, PTI has 4,000 square feet of Class 8 clean room space and 5,000 square feet of controlled environment operations.
