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International Perspective 30 MoldMaking Technology —— MARCH 2018 By Barbara Schulz Looking Beyond Your Borders to Improve Process Efficiency Visiting a mold shop in Germany inspired a Canada-based mold shop president and CEO to look at job scheduling a whole new way. R andy Yakimishyn is a big believer in collaboration. The president and CEO of StackTeck (Brampton, Canada), a provider of sophisticated, inte- grated plastic tooling solutions for the injection molding industry, knows that it is critical to encourage people's quest to learn, share, collaborate and engage in meaningful ways to stimulate innovative thinking. It helps companies stay globally competitive. "Some reputable mold shops in Europe are very strong, and we have many com- petitors there," he says. "We are often compared to the top tier competitors based in Europe. Everyone has to find their own value proposition. What shops in Europe and StackTeck have in common is that our customers aren't those who make buying decisions based on price. If we share our business challenges and col- laborate with other companies, including potential competi- tors, we can only win. StackTeck leads the industry in many ways, including big sophisticated molds, optimized cycle times and flexible Quick Product Change—however, we're always looking for a better way to get the job done." Yakimishyn came across an article about Phoenix Contact (Blomberg, Germany) that was published in MoldMaking Technology in 2017. The piece describes how the Phoenix Contact implemented an in-house, global tool-shop informa- tion system that offers transparency across all databases and manufacturing processes. Yakimishyn contacted the company to find out how the fully transparent and flow-optimized pro- duction environment helped Phoenix Contact cut lead times in its tool shop by 50 percent. Images courtesy of Barbara Schulz. StackTeck's Randy Yakimishyn takes pride in giving tours of this state-of-the-art manufacturing facility, which is pictured here in front of a row of high-speed milling centers. Getting insight into European shops like Phoenix Contact is invaluable for him to drive his business. "We have invested more than $8.5 million in new equip- ment and automation in 2015 and 2016 to ensure strong support for customers' new product launches," Yakimishyn says. "Similar to what I read in the article, we have imple- mented a new scheduling system to track and manage jobs that come through the manufacturing floor more closely. New machines and robotics add productivity throughout the plant, allowing us to get work done more efficiently and effectively. We are also very lean, conduct Gemba board walks in the morning and have boards on the factory floor to visualize our processes. But to me, it seemed that Phoenix has taken the concept of lean, process visualization and transparency to the ultimate limit, so I decided to visit their shop as soon as possible."