World-class competence:

Injection molding company can handle competition

Billings Gazette - October 2011

Manhattan - A sparse population and long distances to major markets are often cited as major obstacles to establishing manufacturing businesses in Montana.

But Mike Groff, president of Plastic Design and Manufacturing, says his company competes well in national and international markets.

"We're a custom injection molding company, and we're one of the few in the state that's world class, Groff said.” We serve the OEM (original equipment manufacturers) and serve a lot of smaller customers. We support a lot of entrepreneurial activity with business in the state and out of state."

PDM's customers are as small as iBike and Blue Ribbon Nets, a Bozeman-based manufacturer of high-end fishing nets, to Hoover, the vacuum cleaner company.

Groff says PDM has developed a strategic alliance with Salient Technologies, a Bozeman-based engineering and design firm. Salient and PDM have collaborated on products ranging from outdoor equipment to portable toilets.

"We're happy to work with them," Groff said referring to Salient. "They have helped our business grow."

Recently, PDM's 22 workers have been busy manufacturing 80,000 plastic tool-carrying buckets that fit on top of Werner Ladders. The buckets are a promotional item for ladders sold at major home centers, Groff said.

"We employ three shifts that work five days a week," Groff said.

Because PDM does custom work, it fills orders from dozens of smaller manufacturers. "We do anywhere from 500 to 500,000 pieces," Groff said. "When you do custom molding, you have to adapt to what the customer needs."

Over the past 20 years, thousands of American manufacturing jobs have been outsourced to cheap-labor markets like Mexico, China, and India. The injection molding business is different because labor makes up perhaps 10 percent of the cost of each piece. Products with higher labor content - textiles for example - are more likely to move to regions with lower labor costs, Groff said.

While PDM's products proudly carry the "Made in Montana" label, some of the manufacturing equipment comes from overseas. Groff travels to China several times per year, where much of the molding equipment is made.

"Buying machines in China helps keep our costs down," Groff said.

PDM Opens New Facility Specializing in Value Based Plastic Parts Sourcing

Montana Manufacturing Center - Winter 2010

Plastic Design & Manufacturing (PDM) has opened a new, state-of-the-art factory in Manhattan, a locale in beautiful southwest Montana, for plastic injection molding, assemblies, and research and development into plastic related engineering, recycling, and bio-based materials programs.

The new location provides easy access shipping and receiving via Interstate 90 and Seattle port. The facility is shared with Quake Industries, a long-time Belgrade plastics injection molding company that specializes in the manufacturing of products in the shooting sports industry with a worldwide distribution.

PDM was started in 1998 to develop turn-key manufacturing programs and outdoor products for the camping, FEMA, and military markets. The growth of the company and its close ties to familial business, Venture Plastics Inc. of Newton Falls, Ohio and El Paso, Texas lead to the development of this new factory which offers lowest cost pricing, utilizing off-shore and domestic sources for tooling, and metal inserts along with locally produced plastic parts and product assemblies to World Class Standards.

New factory for Manhattan plastics company

Business to Business - March 9, 2010

After expanding into manufacturing last summer, Plastics design & Manufacturing (PDM) completed its transition last month by moving into a new 21,000-S.F. building in Manhattan. Located at 210 Wooden Shoe Ln., the new PDM facility accommodates the company's plastic molding, tooling trials, assembly, as well as research and development into numerous plastic related engineering, recycling, and bio-based materials programs.

"We have been in business as a consulting firm working as a turnkey product and tooling design firm since 1999," owner and president Mike Groff explained. "Last year, in August, we added the capacity to manufacture things ourselves right here in Montana."

The expansion has added jobs as well as space, he added.

"Since production started in August, we have added 12 jobs-some salaried and some hourly." Groff notes. "We would love to add more, but it is difficult sometimes to get the resources we need to grow as a manufacturing company here."

One way PDM has kept its cost down is to co-locate in the new facility with Quake Industries, a company that develops and manufactures thermo-injection molded plastic products for hunting and shooting sports and for U.S. businesses needing custom injection molded plastic products.

"We can share overhead because we have a lot of the same requirements in terms of power and water for machines," Groff said. We can use the same facility and augment each other's businesses. We can help with their molding and the can help us occasionally with labor. It's unusual to co-locate this way, but it has brought a lot of positives."

PDM is looking to expand further, working in a 500-mile radius to drum up more molding business. "We still have excess capacity, and we want to get our name out there as a world-class injection molder," he said.

40 years of custom molding

Injection Molding - March 2010

In 1969, a 32-year-old Ken Groff saw an opportunity to launch a business in a rejected part program. Forty years later, the original Franzus Clothes Steamer is no longer around, but the company Groff founded, Venture Plastics, definitely is. - Tony Dellgio

Working in sales at a Middlefield, OH injection molder, Ken Groff watched as that company turned down the opportunity to supply tooling, parts, assembly, and shipping for the clothes steamer. Showing initiative where management displayed disinterest, Groff and two fellow employees created Venture Plastics, with the clothes steamer as their first program. The business was incorporated on Oct. 21, 1969 in Warren, OH. Four Years later, Groff bought out his partners and moved the company to Newton Falls, OH, where its headquarters still stand.

In the intervening years, Venture Plastics has seen many brick-and-mortar changes, undergoing expansions in '77, '86, and '95 so that its Ohio location now covers 45,000 sq. ft. in 2006, Venture invested $2 million in a new 48,000 sq. ft. facility in El Paso, TX called Southwest Venture Plastics. But as much as some elements of the business and the environment it operates in have changes, Groff says that as Venture enters its fourth decade- and he his seventh- many other things remain the same.

"This philosophy got us 40 years so I don't know why we'd change it too much," he says. "We might tweak it a little bit but-diversification, treating employees correctly- I don't see why we can't go forward."

An Early Start

Groff's introduction to plastics came at Geauga Industries, where his father worked in sales, and he started in the estimating department before being promoted to cost-reduction specialist in 1967. In this role, Groff found the most fulfilling aspect of his work came in studying how projects he had estimated ultimately played out. This attention to detail and start-to-finish project management continues at Venture to this day.

One thing that has changed, and been key to the company's success, according to its leader, is a move toward customer diversification. Although Venture launched with one primary product and customer, when that product faced liability issues for failures in the field, Groff appreciated the value in spreading his company's exposure across multiple markets.

Today, Venture serves segments as diverse as appliances and industrial products. "One of the problems [Venture] encountered early on was not having the diversity that's so important," explains Steve Trapp, Venture president, "and it's why we try to maintain it today."

Maintaining Growth

In the midst of the worst recession since the great depression, Trapp estimates that Venture Plastic's sales will finish 2009 7% ahead of 2008, with growth of 15%-20% forecast for 2010. As the year came to a close, Venture added four injection molding machines and a production manager, with three of the machines headed to Ohio and one press, as well as the new hire, installed in Texas.

"This has been an unusual year with the recession," Trapp says, "but despite that, we've seen a lot of opportunities that have developed at both plants." Trapp said October would likely be a record month for new tooling, and those molds are in addition to transfer tooling won by Venture.

Two decisions helped ensure that Venture's 40th year would be one of growth to help it through the downturn: a little TLC for existing customers and a willingness to open its books for new ones.