APPLICATION PROFILE
Water Filtration System

The customer originally placed this multiple mold program with six small local vendors, in an effort to gain the lowest piece price. After years of quality and delivery issues along with the cost of managing multiple vendors, the customer elected to consolidate the entire program with Thermotech.

Taking over this program was especially challenging as there were 52 molds coming from six different vendors. Though the plan was for the transfer to be in 5 mold increments, 42 were delivered to Thermotech at one time! Many of the molds had not been properly maintained so were in poor condition. To add to the challenge, the customer was short engineering resources to assist with the transfer. They gave us the order and left the rest up to us. Through flexing resources and careful planning, we were able to successfully manage the move of this large program. All of the molds were in production within 4 weeks.

Longer term, we demonstrated our true value through reengineering of the program. We recommended tooling modifications and replacements that significantly improved process efficiency. Through faster cycle times, reduced material usage, and integrated automation, we were able to save the customer 18% over previous molders. In addition, we were able to eliminate the expensive manual assembly of an O-ring by proposing a 2-shot molded design. This change resulted in an additional $300,000/year savings for the customer. And, most recently, we responded to their high cost assembly issue with our ability to both mold and assemble the final product at our operation in Querétaro, Mexico.

Application: Home Water Filtration System

# of Molds Received: 52