Small Companies Doing Big Things – MAPP CH3 Plant Tour
Dalton, Georgia | March 15, 2018
MAPP’s first tour in 2018 will be held at CH3 Solutions, a two-year-old company in Dalton, Georgia, that has grown 250 percent in sales since its inception. Originally founded as a solution to a problem – its sister company couldn-t get quality products from its supplier CH3 has made a name for itself as a world-class processor. CH3s team prides itself on being adaptable and product-focused – caring about its products and earning trust from customers. The company adapted its processes to match the quality needed for its main product – basketball and tennis court floors! All assembly work is done in-house, including product-testing, quality and tool maintenance. The organization puts an emphasis on technology and environmental responsibility. From the machinery it uses to the manufacturing process, CH3 consistently tries to reduce overall waste and energy consumption every day. Learn more about CH3 and join other MAPP members at the event by visiting www.mappinc.com/events/plant-tour-event-ch3-solutions.
Innovation in Plastics: A MAPP Young Professionals Event
Noble Plastics | March 29, 2018
MAPP-s Young Professionals network recently announced its first event of 2018: Innovation in Plastics. This takes place at Noble Plastics, Grand Coteau, Louisiana, and focuses on new technology in the plastics industry, including automation, co-bots and mold simulation. Attendees will join MAPP, the Noble team and other plastics industry young professionals for a day focused on understanding and benchmarking innovative practices in the industry. Attendees will network with one another, discuss opportunities to improve the innovative practices in their own facilities and hear from the team at Noble about the company-s experience in enhanced product quality, production efficiency and throughput, as well as have a chance to tour Noble-s 100,000-square-foot facility. Young professionals interested in attending can learn more at www.mappinc.com.
Welcome New MAPP Members
MAPP is proud to welcome the following plastics organizations into the MAPP network:
- Allegheny Performance Plastics, Leetsdale, Pennsylvania
- Matrix 4, Woodstock, Illinois
- Onward Manufacturing Company, Dickson, Tennessee
Now Available: 2018 State of the Plastics Industry Report
MAPP recently released its 2018 State of the Plastics Industry Report. Now in its eighteenth year, this annual report takes an in-depth look at more than 33 economic indicators and their anticipated impact on the plastics industry over the next 12 months. With input from nearly 200 plastics company executives, the report gives a detailed analysis of historic trends, offers market-specific outlooks and breaks down data by company size. This report now is available on the MAPP website for purchase and download. To learn more, visit www.mappinc.com/plastics-information.
New MAPP Sponsors Expand Cost-Reduction Program Offerings to Members
MAPP welcomes the following industry-service providers into the MAPP organization. For more information on MAPP sponsors and their offerings, members can visit www.mappinc.com.
- Absolute Robot: ARI provides solutions to plastics processors’ automation needs. ARI serves all of North and Central America with equipment ranging from pneumatic pickers to full servo robots that can be equipped on machines up to 3,300 tons. This partnership also allows ARI to provide new and pre-owned machinery to customers.
- Molding Professionals LLC: Molding Professionals is a renowned national recruiting, headhunting, business development and search firm serving a wide variety of plastic injection molding companies across the US.
- 5 Folds: An industrial marketing agency with more than 30 years of plastics industry experience, providing clients with the most effective and latest marketing strategies and tactics: Web Design and SEO – LinkedIn Marketing – LinkedIn Advertising – Content Marketing – Brand Collateral – Google AdWords.
- Crestcom: This leadership training series is a monthly business incubator where leaders grow their skills, exchange ideas and share what’s working now. Participants can join the Bullet Proof Manager course at any time and attend one monthly session for 12 consecutive months. At the completion of the training, participating managers will have spent 48 hours in a structured learning environment, exchanging ideas with managers from different fields, backgrounds and experiences.
New MAPP Website Launched
Launching in February, MAPP is excited to unveil the new MAPP website. The new site features an improved user experience, allowing members to improve their connections and elevate the awareness of our members’ capabilities and much more. MAPP’s website also will be mobile friendly, allowing members to access all the MAPP resources from their phones.
MAPP Announces 2018 Benchmarking Topics
As MAPP strives to be the plastics industry’s information hub, it has announced its 2018 benchmarking topics. MAPP members with specific benchmarking topic ideas or needs are encouraged to reach out to MAPP’s staff at info@mappinc.com.
- 2018 State of the Plastics Industry
- Drugs in the Workplace
- Molding Machine Maintenance
- Tuition Reimbursement
- Wage and Salary
- Marketing in Manufacturing
Save the Date for MAPP’s EHS Summit and Annual Benchmarking and Best Practices Conference!
EHS (Environmental, Health and Safety) Summit
July 18-19 | Columbus, Ohio
2018 Benchmarking and Best Practices Conference – Be Extraordinary
October 10-12 | Indianapolis, Indiana
Dare to Engage: One of the Best Investments I’ve Made
It’s an absolute honor to serve as the president of MAPP’s board of directors. I am in awe of the past MAPP presidents, and I am inspired by the leadership and guidance they’ve provided over the years. I am now personally excited about our future and the direction of our current leadership as I take my turn at the helm!
My company, Dymotek, became a member of MAPP 10 years ago to take advantage of some sponsor discounts. Our level of involvement changed significantly when, in 2008, I attended my first Benchmarking Conference in Indianapolis. Never before had I ever been so inspired to develop myself and improve my own company after attending one single event. I will never forget the embarrassment I felt for not having key members of my team participate in such a motivating, inspiring and overall educational event – and I vowed not to make the same mistake twice.
I immediately engaged myself after the conference by implementing what I had learned from speakers like Jack Daly, a successful business leader from outside of our industry, who said he personally signed more than 2,000 birthday cards to his employees annually. How could I possibly not find time to write out a mere 50? It was at a later conference that six of my staff members and I learned about the power of gratitude. We often focused so hard on our business challenges that we did not actually recognize our achievements. Since that conference, we now take time at the beginning of our meetings to be grateful for those successes.
As another way to engage, our company took a giant step forward by opening our doors to other members of the MAPP community for MAPP’s signature quarterly tour event. MAPP is the only organization I know that ensures its members have professional development opportunities regularly throughout the year. While hosting our tour, we set up stations highlighting what we believed to be interesting and potentially a best practice to share with other members. We had over 50 visiting executives representing some of the most successful in the US plastics industry. In addition to the value I hope we provided for the attendees – I’ve had the privilege of touring over a dozen MAPP member companies and have taken away and implemented best practices in my own plant that were shared with me – my team was given incredible feedback on opportunities for improvement.
My team also has become engaged with MAPP’s peer networking webinars – basically, a value-packed 60 minutes of sharing among your peers (human resources, sales and marketing, quality, IT™) in the industry to solve problems and find proven resources. This activity is so simple, but one of the most effective ways to enhance the knowledge and skill sets of every staff member.
We engage by working with the community of MAPP sponsors, which provide a variety of important services from strategy to marketing to training and financial. I feel they represent the best in class for our industry, and my company is better for having utilized their products and services.
Dymotek has been the recipient of many regional and national accolades year after year for excellence in culture as well as performance. These humbling awards are directly tied to having a MAPP-engaged team of associates.
I’ve shared the success of my journey with you because I’m grateful that I made the investment to become active in MAPP. As I take the reins from Ben Harp, who has been a phenomenal board president, I hope to continue his incredible leadership of the organization. At present, MAPP is at an all-time high with membership and retention levels. We now offer development for next-generation executives through our Young Professionals Group and have moved our Benchmarking conference, by far the best event in our industry, to a larger venue to handle the increased attendance. More members of our plastics processing community are seeing the benefits in MAPP than ever before.
So now I will simply encourage you not to wait. Take the next step to engage (or join, if you haven’t), I promise the return is ten-fold – and this is testimony from someone who has experienced it repeatedly. I dare you to engage!
