‘Scientific mindset' works for Wisconsin's Plastic Parts

Union Grove, Wis. — One of the phrases that's frequently heard at Plastic Parts Inc. is "As Dad used to say…"

The Union Grove-based custom injection molding company was Arthur P. Jorgenson Jr.'s dream. Although he died in 2012, his family keeps the dream alive and frequently invokes his words of advice.

One example: "Anybody can make an expensive solution to a problem. The key is to come up with a solution that gives the customer good quality without breaking the bank."

Another Jorgensonism: "It takes a rich man to run poor tools." He was the son of an inventor and toolmaker, and he knew it took good tools to make good parts.

Arthur Jorgenson fell in love with plastic at age 17, in his high school chemistry class in nearby Racine. But he didn't have an opportunity to pursue the dream until 1966, at age 45, when he and his father-in-law founded Plastic Parts with a handful of employees and some used machines.

Today, the company's second generation is in charge. The top two officials are sisters: CEO Jill Jorgenson-Osiecki and President Sheri Jorgenson.

"We are a woman-owned business, with women in a lot of key positions," Jorgenson-Osiecki said. She came to the company in 2006 in an emergency situation, when the company discovered that an employee had embezzled money. Her father, sister, brother and husband were already working at Plastic Parts.

At first, she didn't have a title. But after she put the company's finances back in order, she discovered other management systems needed attention.

"I wasn't even sure I was going to stay. But I started to see things that I could help improve. We changed the accounting systems, and we started to do some office automation," she said. "I worked in big companies for 25 years. I started to see that working in a small company had significant benefits."

Plastic Parts has 42 employees, working three shifts, five days a week in a 44,000-square-foot plant. It has 15 injection molding machines with clamping forces ranging from 55-500 tons. Plastics News estimates the company's annual sales at $7 million.

"We're kind of in a big growth spurt right now, with a large number of new customers and a large number of new tools," Jorgenson-Osiecki said. "Dollar-wise, it's going to be 20-25 percent growth in sales.

"We're not a commodity molder. Our customers ask us to do complicated things," like insert molding and overmolding, she said.

Key markets include transportation and heavy equipment, gears, motor components, plumbing/HVAC/appliances, outdoor power equipment and lawn and garden.

Jorgenson-Osiecki talks passionately about the importance of manufacturing to the economy.

"Manufacturing is the key to our economy in general. We can't be flipping each other's burgers," she said. "We've stuck with it through different economic cycles, and we have a good economic cycle right now. But that doesn't mean if the economic cycle goes bad that we're going to throw in the towel. We, as Americans, need to know how to make things.

"The fact is that this is a great industry," Jorgenson-Osiecki said. "My dad saw plastics as the material of the future, and it truly was."

While she has the CEO title, Jorgenson-Osiecki said the company has a collaborative approach to management. In addition to Jill and Sheri, brother Jeffrey is general manager. In conversations with the siblings, they all chime in with stories and information. Sometimes they even finish each other's sentences.

"It's not just run by Sheri, Jeff and I. We set the tone and we establish what we want to do here and the culture and so forth, and then we allow our managers to do what they do best," Jorgenson-Osiecki said.

Hiring and developing employees is a challenge.

"We have higher turnover in entry-level positions than we do in higher-level positions. But we do try to develop people from the ground up," she said. "We are a woman-owned business, and believe it or not, all three of our shift supervisors are women, and we have a lot of women in key areas, and they were trained from operators."

Does she think that being a woman-owned business made the company more open to promoting women to key roles?

"You're asking a woman. I don't think I was ever closed off to the idea," she joked. "It may have been a shock to my father, but it was never a shock to me. I think my sister was the one who suggested that we could train women to be setup technicians and processors, which at that time was not common.

"I will say there have been a number of times when we have been interfacing with other people in the industry, where they said, 'Well, we've never seen so many women.' Sometimes the men are surprised."

She added: "I give my brother a lot of credit for being willing to work with his sisters."

For the future, the company is in the process of developing proprietary products for the baby and pet industries. In a way, it's a return to the family's roots in inventing.

"There is a creative side to Jill, and it's almost like we're trying to think outside the box as an injection molder, which will always be our main business," said Cathy Cimoch, director of business development and sales.

Jorgenson-Osiecki highlighted that Plastic Parts brings in interns and encourages young people to pursue careers in plastics manufacturing — especially young women.

"I'm in favor of women in manufacturing, and just manufacturing in general," she said. "Women often don't think of these types of jobs because they probably think it's dirty, smelly, dangerous. But that's why a lot of kids don't go into manufacturing in general.

"We need to open their eyes to the fact that plastics is an example of an industry that is a very productive manufacturing industry that is not dirty, smelly, dangerous, that women would feel uncomfortable around the environment. That's something we do with our interns."