Mack Wins International Manufacturing Award

More recently, Mack has concentrated on the third leg of the business model – big, bulky, complex (BBC) products – which diversifies its markets beyond medical and emphasizes its services beyond injection molding. “This aspect of our business model – what we call the BBC initiative – drives us toward products that are too large to be manufactured efficiently overseas and too complex to be confidently and expediently managed from offshore locations,” explains Jeff Somple, president, Mack Molding Northern Operations.An example is the Next Generation Blender that Mack is producing for f’real foods LLC. The100-pound blender, used by consumers in retail stores to whip up f’real frozen drinks, is a self-cleaning, mobile-enabled device that incorporates 400 parts from 63 suppliers and includes a 22-inch LCD touch screen. Besides manufacturing the device, Mack does all procurement and provides upfront design-for-manufacturability studies.

Other BBC examples include mail sorters and production mail systems, solar-powered municipal trash compactors and recycling systems, RFID inventory management systems, and insect control systems for lawn and garden care. To date, BBC products represent 39 percent of overall sales.

In recognition of its successful reboot, Mack received a 2011 Progressive Manufacturing 100 Award for Business Model Mastery. Others in the winners’ circle included Caterpillar,Chevron, Coca-Cola, Dow Chemical, Ford, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin, and Nestle.