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Global Competition 26 MoldMaking Technology —— OCTOBER 2017 Integrity Tool and Mold built this instrument panel substrate mold at its Queretaro, Mexico plant. A large, global Tier 1 supplier will run the mold there and supply the parts to a German OEM that performs vehicle assembly in Mexico. Integrity offers full mold design and build, engineering changes, and maintenance and repair services there. and it was expanded to 40,000 square feet in 2015. The company is ramping up a second facility located just down the road because the first facility, which has 125 employ- ees, is at capacity. "The second plant gives us an additional 118,000 square feet, which is triple the size of the first plant," McLaughlin says. "We did this because our goal is to add more mold manufacturing capacity, full mold validation and tryout services." Integrity already has several injection- molding presses, including Haitian 320-ton and 1200-ton machines and Krauss-Maffei 550-ton, 2300-ton 1K, and 2300T 4K machines. All equipped with six-axis robots. McLaughlin asserts that while there are cost savings, Mexico is not a low-cost country, despite what many may think. "North America doesn't stop at the U.S. Southern border. Skilled labor in Mexico—it's somewhat comparable to the rest of North America. Our guys are CNC opera- tors, EDM operators and mold designers, so they're skilled employees." Integrity has an in-house training program to build a skilled workforce. Some trainees go to Canada for instruction, and Canadian instructors also travel to Mexico. Additionally, Integrity is a founding member of the AMMMT (a new, Mexico-based moldmaking association), which is working with local schools to develop more specific curricula for moldmaking. "At the end of the day, it's more the con- venience of having no time delay at the border or shipping costs, plus local support from a growing supply base," he says, adding that a lot has changed over the last five years. Word is getting around that Mexico is a growing market and several supplier companies have estab- lished facilities in Queretaro, including Finkl Steel, Bohler, Ellwood Specialty Steel, DME, Synventive, HRS and Mold- Masters, Tenibac and Mold- Tech. "Those are key indicators," McLaughlin says. "When com- panies of their caliber are invest- ing in new locations, they're looking into the same crystal ball as we are, envisioning the future. They're not doing it just because there's a little blip in market predictions for Mexico. They're thinking long-term and so are we." While a few Canadian shops are manufacturing molds in Mexico, others are ship- ping molds across the border. StackTeck (Brampton, Ontario) does not have an additional moldmaking facility in Mexico, choosing instead to build all its molds in Canada and export about 95 percent of them to cus- tomers all over the world. The company maintains a regional office in Guadalajara, Mexico. At that office, a team of representa- tives provides sales and support services to customers primarily in the packaging industry. Support services include on-site meetings, frequent visits, attendance at mold start-ups, assis- tance in problem solving, quote preparations, maintenance guidance and so on. Christopher Day, who has a Bachelor of Science in Engineering, is one of these representatives. He is the one who first established the office in 2000 after hav- ing worked at the company's Canadian plant for about three years. "It was a good time to make the move, because there started to be an influx of foreign companies establishing operations in Mexico in addition to the European and Asian Image courtesy of Integrity Tool and Mold.