JM Mold, Inc.

JM Mold, Inc. is a small privately owned manufacturer of plastic injection molds and die cast dies. The 30 person company serves primarily "2nd tier" suppliers to the appliance, automotive, and small hand tool markets. Their typical order is for a plastic injection mold from a "custom molder" who then sells parts produced off of that mold for Original Equipment Manufacturers like Whirlpool.

Value Proposition

The JM Mold philosophy is based on three major goals:

• To give customers the service and attention required to fit their needs.
• To produce, through technology and skilled craftsmanship, tooling which will met or surpass the customer’s standards.
• To retain costs at a fair level and to meet deliveries quoted.

Competitive Advantages

JM Mold has four main competitive advantages that attribute to its success:

• Stability - JM Mold has been in business for 30 years and serves customers in over 12 states. Having faced the challenge of competing in a highly comptetive tool and die market, JM Mold has succeeded to overcome the threats posed by the competing 400 business employing over 10,000 people in the greater Dayton area.
• Experience - Toolmaking is a skilled craft and much of this skill can be acquired only through experience. The average JM Mold worker has 10-15 years of experience. Expertise and skill of craftsmanship is a requirement for a company that designs custom products catered to the customer’s need.
• Technology - JM Mold is on the cutting edge of the latest in communication and computer-aided technology. Reports are available to the customer in a variety of formats ranging from a print out with the pictures embedded in the spreadsheet, a computer disk of the file, or via email. Also in place is a fully computerized tracking system for accurate progress reports and efficiency detailing. With this capability, anything that is on JM Mold’s computer can be displayed on the customer’s computer screen simultaneously.
• Full Service - In addition to tool and die production capabilities, JM Mold has in-house engineering including Pro/Engineer and AutoCAD, in-house Polishing, and a complete delivery and pick-up service. JM Mold is committed to establishing and nurturing long-term relationships with a select number of key customers. Successful relationship factors include:
• Face-to-Face Interaction.
• Early Involvement in New Projects.
• Continuous updated information through weekly visual progress reports that show a project’s progress.
• Exchange of information and knowledge in designing and manufacturing tooling.
• Commitment to continuous improvement.

Why is JM Mold interesting and why does it work in relation to traditional practice?

JM Mold uses agile manufacturing techniques and has been capable of market testing and manufacturing a product simultaneously, launching it in half the normal product development time. JM Mold has proved that Size doesn’t matter. As an organization that has set itself up to actually thrive in continuously evolving conditions JM Mold has placed itself not only as a competitor, but with potential to become an industry leader. Their success has been a result of the application of the strength of "agility" and the exploration of the concept of "virtual organizations."

Agility

Agility is the ability to thrive constantly changing environment and can be further examined in the following four dimensions:

• Enriching customers - JM Mold adds "intellectual properties" such as how certain details of parts would affect not only the price of the mold, but also how it would run and in some instances what consumer reaction would be.
• Cooperating to enhance competitiveness - Because of compressed time cycles, JM Mold took advantage of the machine time available from not only their local suppliers, but also competitors.
• Organizing to master change and uncertainty - Once employees truly understood that changes were a constant, that the only thing that was to be counted on was that things would continue to change, the morale actually improved as projects continued .
• Leveraging the impact of people and information - Initial efforts to maintain the typical customer-supplier relations that once caused delays in delivery were improved as the transfer of information became more efficient and accurate.

Because of the successful applications of these four dimensions of agility, JM Mold has been able to acquire several other projects from companies wishing to take their products to market in a rush or with concurrent prototyping and product testing.

Virtual Organizations

"Virtual organization" involves "outsourcing" work in a more sophisticated, planned manner. With the extreme shortage of labor, yet a large influx of work available, JM Mold’s virtual organization approach allowed them handle not only the plastic injection molding, but also the metal forming, fixturing and various housing. The virtual organization basically provides one-stop shopping with one company like JM Mold "running the point." The incredible power and flexibility that virtual organizations can have, allow a higher efficiency rate of work completed with less people.