Evaluation of an Injection Moulding Company

Hi-mark Ltd

Function

Hi-mark limited supply the automotive industry with injection moulded parts these fall into two main categories

What is plastic injection moulding?

Injection moulding is a manufacturing process where heated plastic is forced into a mould cavity under pressure. A mould cavity is essentially a negative of the part being produced. The cavity is filled with plastic, and the plastic changes phase to a solid, resulting in a positive. Typically injection pressures range from 5000 to 20,000 psi. Because of the high pressures involved, the mould must be clamped shut during injection and cooling. Clamping forces are measured in tons.

Mechanical items:

Gear change socket - Ford Focus

Polyurethane sleeves for springs - mainly Nissan

Shock absorber bump cup - landrover Freelander

More recently they have moved into

Trim items:

Load cover end plates for BOS

Window sun screen brackets and housing for jaguar

These are supplied directly to:

Ford incorporating jaguar

GM (general motors)

Chrysler

They have indirect links to the companies below through a company called BOS

Toyota

Volvo

Volkswagen

Saab

The Economic Contribution of hi-mark

Injection moulding Manufacture is considered to be in a secondary sector these are companies which manufacture an actual product from raw materials

Locally

* The workforce comes from the surrounding area (Wrexham)this is approximately 45 people at any one time

* Maintenance is carried out by an in house technician who calls on the manufacture to send a representative to give training where it is required

* Tooling is purchased as locally as possible to facilitate rapid modification of the mould if required (the tooling company is actually across the road) for development of new moulds these are logistical considerations as the moulds can weigh up to 1500 kg and as such are very expensive to move around although tooling can be purchased abroad cheaper the lead times and transport costs would negate any saving

* Service requirements: water & electricity from the national grid system although at the current time their electrical requirements are greater than the supply available restricting their capacity but this problem is being addressed

The rest of the U.K:

Last year Hi-mark contributed to 50% of the UK automotive injection moulding market unfortunately I could not find any data on who their competitors were so could not carry out any kind of comparison. One of the things I did notice was that they are heavily dependent on one customer BOS and if you look the Pareto analysis you find that normal 80% of business comes from 20% of customers but Hi-mark may have exceeded this ratio and it could have catastrophic effects if there was a down turn in the market

The bigger picture

* All their injection moulding machines are bought from the MannesMann cooperation operating out of France

* Raw materials are bought from multinational conglomerates such as BASF and Huntsman but are made into the required plastic compounds in the uk

Despite knowing their market share and their turnover of 2.5 million I could not find any published figures on the market as a whole so could not find out how much the injection moulding industry contributes to the automotive industry but I think I am safe in saying Hi-Mark would occupy less than 1% of the total automotive supply industry

Organisation structure

The hierarchy is a quite a flat pyramid shape this tells me that Hi-mark has many people on the same level and a relatively small number of levels this makes it hard to tell who is in charge of what

This is because in order to solve a problem they need to have lots of different kinds of expertise not levels of it

Job roles - Key personnel

David Yates - managing director, liaises with all other managers Finance director and customers. He is responsible for all of the companies decisions weather taken by him or another employee signs all new contracts

Ann Pinnington - finance director she liaises with the bank to make money available for new machines/material and has joint control of the accounting system wit the accountant also liaises with M.D. on staff levels etc

Graham Clarke - Technical / sales manager Liaises with M.D on all aspects of production, manages and has direct control over technicians and engineers

Lynne Champion-Jones - commercial Manager Administrates office and staff locates suppliers & product costing directly accountable to the finance director

Shift supervisors - make sure the sift personnel arrive on time and carry out their work. make recommendations to the commercial manager

Technicians - set up machines for jobs provide limited technical assistance

Project / Quality Technicians - Make sure the individual quality controls for each project have been met submit products for accreditation

Schematic layout of one interface

Information flow

Information