APPLICATION PROFILE
Power Mirror for Automotive

The customer for this program had an assembly plant in Michigan. They were buying the components for the assembly from four local molders. In order to reduce costs and locate closer to their customers, they were making plans to move their assembly operations to Central Mexico. With that move, came the need to consolidate suppliers into a local source for their plastic components and subassemblies. It was our Querétaro operation that first attracted them to Thermotech. However, as they learned more about our precision molding expertise and our wide range of capabilities, they were sold on much more than our location.

This program involved 22 tools from four different vendors. The tools were first sent to our Hopkins, Minnesota location for tool analysis/repair and process development then transferred to Querétaro for production. Most of the molds that we received had not been well maintained and many were not designed for effective manufacturing. All of the tools required major clean-up and many needed extensive repairs in order to get them to function in production. Due to the focus on moving their operation to Mexico, the customer lacked resources to properly manage a transfer of this magnitude. Thermotech assumed full responsibility for coordinating the successful transition including not only the tooling transfer but also assisting with inventory management to insure no disruption in supply.

Application: Power Mirror for Automotive

# of Molds Received: 22