A Conversation with Creative Blow Mold Tooling
The purchase of one, and then another, Haas UMC-750 five-axis machining center triggered the implementation of new, better machining processes that have helped Creative Blow Mold Tooling significantly reduce lead times and expand into new markets. Image courtesy of Creative Blow Mold Tooling.
Explain how Creative Blow Mold Tooling better serves the needs of its customers through supply-chain management.
Jim Hensiek, director of business development: The market for packaging design and development is very competitive. When brand owners plan to change packaging, they want the new packaging quickly. This puts pressure on our customers to deliver, which puts more pressure on their suppliers, including us, to deliver quickly. We believe effective supply-chain management works upstream and downstream, and our approach is one of assisting customers with sourcing and managing resources for modeling, sampling and other tooling needs that are outside Creative’s scope of work. Part of this process includes the generation of mold-building spec sheets for every customer. Each spec sheet highlights 19 key areas of required specifications regarding new mold builds, mold refurbishment and mold repair, including the various machine platforms scheduled to produce the container in each plant location. The data, which also documents past mold performance, helps us continually improve on delivery timelines while also improving our customers’ ROI. At the same time, it’s also important that we stay on the cutting edge of technology to be able to provide more services in-house and reduce lead times.