Are You a ‘World-Class’ Processor?

Whether you are involved in molding, extrusion, or thermoforming, you likely have some system in place that tracks your company’s key performance metrics, like scrap rate, machine utilization rate, on-time delivery rate, and so forth. But how do those results compare with your competition? We’d like to help you find out if you’re improving your own operations and how 
you stack up against your competition.

Last month, Plastics Technology magazine launched what we are calling the World Class Processors benchmarking survey—a comprehensive examination of plastics facilities across all types of processes —and if you participate, you will share in the data we collect and can see how you measure up.

By now, you probably have received an email from us directing you to the survey. If you have not responded, I urge you to do so. The survey will remain live until the end of this month. You can go to it directly by clicking here.  Recipients of the Best Practices in Plastics Processing awards will be profiled in a future issue of Plastics Technology magazine.

Respondents can remain 100% anonymous; or, if they want, they can include their contact information and make their facility eligible for our Best Practices in Plastics Processing awards, recognizing the top-performing plants in the survey.

The survey is comprised of approximately 40 general questions, plus some process-specific queries. The questions are broken into four main categories:

 •  Profile information: Covers key plant characteristics, including processes employed, materials run, markets served, and machinery footprint. Process-specific questions will assess capabilities in injection molding, extrusion, thermoforming, and blow molding.
 •  Operational metrics: Questions address performance measures including scrap rate, setup time, machine utilization, on-time delivery, and more.
 •  Processing/business strategies and performance: Plant certifications, quality programs, marketing, process and production monitoring, and more are addressed.
 •  Human resources: Total number of employees, wage rates, benefits, training, and more are examined.

Speaking of human resources, I’d like to segue into some news of our own. With this issue, Plastics Technology welcomes Heather Caliendo to our editorial team. For the last three years, Heather has worked for the PlasticsToday online publication. For Plastics Technology, she will be contributing content to our print, electronic and social media efforts. Please join me in welcoming Heather aboard.