Mold makers gain 3 percent in this year's ranking

Our new mold makers ranking is out this week with 146 firms representing $3 billion in sales.

Two firms from last year's top 10 are out of the mold business. This makes comparing year-over-year results a little tricky.

H.S. Die & Engineering Inc. of Grand Rapids, Mich., has shifted its focus from tool and die operations to solely automation solutions, and Proper Group International LLC was forced into receivership and sold off most of its operations.

Because we're no longer counting those large firms at the top of our list, the revised totals and averages represent no notable change over the previous year — math is funny that way.

But I wanted a meaningful result on this year's totals. So, I ran a quick data pull of firms appearing in both last year's ranking and this year's. The average sales per company went up 3 percent in 2022 vs. 2021. This continues a trend we started tracking back in 2001.

In addition, the ranking chart footnotes a few consolidations and new additions. So, what's a data girl to do but find pigeonholes to report on? For the 38 firms reporting gains, the average growth was 13 percent; 96 reported no change and 11 reported declines. The only real trend was an uptick in making injection molds.

From that very first list of the top 20 mold makers, I pulled a line from our Viewpoint article highlighting paths to success [April 2, 2001, Page 10]. One stood out: 'Smaller firms need to become full-service operations.' Looking at the websites and press coverage for this year's ranked group, that path is now well traveled.

According to a panel discussion about the future of mold making at the Injection Molding and Design Expo, mold makers faced disruption during the pandemic followed by supply chain problems, material cost increases, labor shortages and competition from China. Demand lightened, too, forcing some companies to either fold or change direction. What's next? More demand, shorter lead times and diversification.

• Colonial Machine Co. of Kent, Ohio, moved up 18 spaces to rank at No. 49.

• VEM Tooling Ltd. of Clovis, Calif., moved up 14 spaces to rank at No. 42.

• Ameri-Tool Industries Inc. of Albay, Ore., moved up 13 spaces to rank at No. 113.

• Medbio Clinton Township in Michigan moved up 10 spaces to rank at No. 77.

• Avantech Inc. of Baxter, Minn., moved up nine spaces to rank at No. 61.

• Elite Mold & Engineering Inc. of Shelby Township, Mich., moved up nine spaces to rank at No. 77.

• MSI Mold Builders Inc. of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, moved up seven spaces to rank at No. 34.

• Mold making, machining and manufacturing firm, Kent Mold & Mfg. Co. of Kent, Ohio.

• Source One in Murrieta, Calif., providing design and engineering solutions.

• Full-service tooling provider Tek Pak Inc. of St. Charles, Ill.

The full listing is available to view online at www.plasticsnews.com/mold-makers. Downloads of the MS Excel versions of our rankings and lists require a data level subscription. For more information on how to sign up, fill out this form at www.plasticsnews.com/datasubscription. If you work for a company that is missing from the ranking, then we would like to include you next time. Please contact Hollee Keller at [email protected].

Keller is Plastics News' editorial research coordinator and author of the All Things Data blog on PlasticsNews.com. Follow her on Twitter @holleekeller.