We have our own family owned injection molding business. We now have over 20 machines and started out with only 5 when we bought the business 19 years ago. We are closing our doors at the end of the month and liquidating everything. We were running up to 100% of our machines and three shifts with over 20 employees until recently. Now we just have a skeleton crew on one shift.
Most of our customers have been moving their business over to China and it has cut into our profits so much lately that we are just breaking even. Manufacturing business in the US is a dieing right now. If your company can hold on a few years, till the other countries start raising their prices, it will be profitable to manufacture in the US again.
For the last couple of years we have seen the writing on the wall. Every week we would get a couple of auction notices from other injection molding business that were shutting down. Most of these were large multi million dollar companies.
We have decided to not wait it out and to concentrate our money and efforts in a different kind of business, that is why we are closing down and selling everything. The profit margins in the injection molding business are only about 10% max. The other business we are looking at have a 20 to 30% profit margin and have less demanding customers.
We had found ways to hold or reduce our prices to our customers over the last 19 years so we could remain competitive but they always wanted cheaper prices. We weren't allowed to cut our prices even though the price of raw materials and power was always going up. Some customers (automotive) even dictated to us how much we were going to reduce our prices to them if we wanted to stay in business with them. We always found a way to comply whether it was optimizing the process or finding a cheaper supplier of raw materials or getting more efficient machines. This still wasn't enough for them as they were discovering that China could make things cheaper than we could. The difference is less than a penny to a few cents a part, but that can translate into millions of dollars in savings because of the amounts ordered. Our customers then decided to start migrating their work to China and other countries and our orders went down. This isn't only happening to injection molding companies, it is happening to all types of manufacturing companies.
I feel sorry for our employees and we are trying to place the key ones with some of our competitors. Some of our older employees are going to retire and the least experienced ones will have to see what they find.
I will be taking my share of the business money and purchasing another business in a different more profitable field. I get to own my own business now instead of just being the boss and I will enjoy a better quality of life.
The state of Connecticut, were I am based now, has become less business friendly from when I first moved here. Taxes are high and numerous, the electrical rates just went through the roof because the state doesn't make it's own power anymore and the cost of living here is very high.
If your company can stay in business you have a chance to advance through the ranks. You can even take courses on injection molding to understand the science behind it. I can set up any mold from scratch and get it running within a day, because I know our machines and their quirks. The manufacturers data for the materials does not always match the setup we end up with after the process gets optimized. I just use that information as a basic guideline to get the jobs running and I adjust the process from there.
I think setting up the molds in the machines and getting them running is a better job than cleaning them. I have done all the jobs here from sweeping the floors to everything in between to my present job as one of the Vice Presidents of the company. I also do 90% of all repairs on all of the equipment here. This saves our company tens of thousands of dollars in repair bills and down time. Now I can apply all the knowledge I have gained here to running my own business when the time comes.
Good luck in your new job and I hope you enjoy it.
[This message has been edited by avengador1 (edited 08-10-2007).]
