Plastic Spools, Reels, Bobbins for the Textile, Wire and Cable Industries

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Molded Plastic Spools and Reels
Packaging the product in a saleable size and shape has always been a real challenge to manufactures. Manufacturing engineers tended to worry more about the processes of production than about the package. Now some industries have people whose job is package engineering. Presently, the use of plastics as a means of packaging products in an ever-growing application for that material in many shapes and sizes.
Back in the years 1967, Dustin Hoffman played the Graduate in the classic movie of the same name. The one word "Plastics" was confidentially given as the password to a promising career.
At that time, not all applications met with success. Some gave the material a bad name. Continued progress in developing new compounds and techniques of manufacture have changed that.
There are so many corners of the plastics industry. It is hard to imagine that any one company could fill them all. The trick seems to be to find a niche in the overall market and go for it.

We see in the Company Profile section of the July 2005 of this publication that thirty years ago David and Dorothy Chiorgno started a company, now two corporations - Pittsfield Plastics Engineering, Inc. (PPE) & Precision Spools, Inc.
The location is Pittsfield, MA, USA. The profile says this city is known as the "Plastics Capital of North American." That is reminiscent of Detroit, MI, USA being the auto capital and Akron, OH, USA the rubber (now polymer) capital.
Pittsfield has a high concentration of technology, resources and trained employees. The niche that this husband and wife team of Dorothy and David chose was the design and manufacture of injection molds for plastic. Their company has grown with the industry. Success in one niche led to moving into others. For customer's that have a product design they wish to have injection molded, the talent at PPE can design and develop the mold. This led to the need for an injection machine for tryout and then to moving from prototype through final decoration, assembly and packaging. Now, the company will delivery to meet its customers' needs or their "zero inventory" (JIT) production schedules.

Then came the state-of-the-art-injection molding facility. So now there is a full-service plastic injection moldng company. It provides high capacity, fast turnaround production of injection molded plastic parts, and custom designed molds.
In 1998, the Chiorgnos were ready to sell the business. They would stay around a while to help in the transition to new owners. They still come in.
Tom Walker, now President and some associates bought the business. He has a team of talented people with extensive experience in the industry.
Included on the team is Peter Olsta, a man well known in the plastic reel industry.
With all that talent and equipment, it is natural that the company has developed product lines. These are made and marketed by Precision Spools, Inc., and include plastic spools, bobbins, reels, dye tubes, tape cores and covers. Wire and stranded material are thus packaged.

Peter Olsta says, "PPE can decorate your reels with your mark of distinction. Think of the lesson of vodka marketing. Different brands have similar taste, but the decoration on the package and bottle sets them apart."
Despite the wide range of standard spools and reels produced by PPE, the company has been alert to the suggestions of their customers and have developed new designs that perform better.

Tom Walker says, "Our two new designs of standard wire reels came from a re-engineering to address the market's concern for flange chipping and breakage. We incorporated an extra row of ribs in the 11.75" x 7" (300 x 180 mm) and added six more ribs to the 8" x 6" (200 x 150 mm) to create a stronger flange in these HIPS (high impact polystyrene) or ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) reel designs. This has been proven to enhance both in-process and shipping reel performance for our customers. Demand has been phenomenal."
A new niche for PPE is the Conduit Repair Kit. Two halves of plastic tubing are cemented to leaking underground cables. A Boston lady's dog wouldn't have had scorched paws when it stepped on a manhole cover that was electrified if the leak had been repaired with such a kit.

Customer Driven
Pittsfield Plastics making inroads in textile industry
By Devin Steele

Pittsfield, MA - There's customer driven - and then there's customer driven.
      When a principal of a company drops everything and drives eight hours to meet a potential client, that's being customer driven.
      Ditto when a company co-owner delivers products in a pickup truck - through the snow, no less - so a customer's production schedule isn't interrupted. Or when a company turns around a new order for 2,000 units - which had to be developed and produced - in only two days, eight weeks sooner that the customers' current supplier could deliver.
      So go ahead and put Pittsfield Plastics in the customer driven category. To illustrate their willingness to go out of their way for clients, the company's principals recently recollected those and other stories that have helped put them on the path to unprecedented success.

      The difference between a company that's growing and a company that has become stagnant is where it's focused," said Duncan Cooper, who co-owns Pittsfield with Tom Walker and Tom Holmes, "and we are focused on the customer."    

So much so that the full-service molding company, since being bought by that trio in late 1997, is seeing its business take off dramatically. Each month this year, the firm has turned in sales numbers higher that the comparable month last year. Cooper said.
      A big reason for Pittsfield's recent surge: It has trained its eye on the textile industry, for which it supplies dye and take-up tubes, spools and bobbins.
      This small operation, nestled on a winding road in the Berkshire mountains of far Western Massachusetts, has made such strides in the industry over the last several months it is looking to expand its operations some where down South - in the heart of textile country.   "When the time warrants, we will be down South," said Walker.               Already, the company has hired a Southeast sales manager, Doug Leonhardt, based in Union, S.C.
      The story of this 30-year-old operation is unique: Three men with a vision and business savvy buy a well-run, family-owned company, retain the previous owners and personnel and build upon that solid foundation with an assortment of new ideas.
      They believe their initiatives will pay off, they say. Among them: doubling their staff to 55, investing $1.2 million in the company to upgrade machinery and expand capacity and product line, increasing its marketing strategy, shoring up employee benefits packages, upgrading computer systems to Y2K compliance and overseeing a successful ISO-9002 certification.
      Each measure, the owners say, is occurring for one reason: customers. "We respond to what the customer wants and I think that's what makes us successful," Cooper said.


David Chiorgno designs molds from "Command Central"

Good Marriage
      The Pittsfield story began about three decades ago, when David and Dorothy Chiorgno (say Kee-OR-no) opened that firm here, in a region that has become known as "the plastics capital of the world" - an area concentrated with plastics operations that boast high technology, resources and employee training. The business began as an injection-molding company and grew with the state of the industry by expanding its focus to include manufacturing spools and reels.
      When Walker, Cooper and Holmes began looking at buying a business about three years ago, they put Pittsfield on their short list because of its reputation for quality, service and customer support, Walker said. But when they called David Chiorgno to see if he was interested in selling, he gave them a "big, flat no," Walker recalled. But the trio finally convinced Chiorgno that such a purchase would be good for all parties involved and the deal was done in December of 1997.
      "As a family organization, we were all comfortable," said Chiorgno, 65 who holds a minority interest in the company. "But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I didn't want to be running the whole company when I was 70. It looked like a good fit because we had a marketing guy (Walker), a finance guy (Cooper) and (Homes) in the distribution/logistics business. I'm happy with the arrangement."
      The "arrangement," of course, included keeping Chiorgno, his family and staff intact.
      "Usually when somebody comes in and buys a company, there's a big house-cleaning party, " Walker said. "But our marriage has worked out fine. Everybody's here, everybody works together, works as a team. We have fun, too."
      And Chiorgno, who began as a mold-builder, is in his element. As supervisor of the tooling department, he is in charge of creating and enhancing products in that state-of-the-art- area, in addition to handling plant engineering projects.
      Walker calls Chiorgno's office "command central." "This is his love," Walker said. "When it comes to designing molds, David is a god."
      And you won't get any denials from Chiorgno. I'm doing what I enjoy doing," he said.
      Meanwhile, his wife Dorothy serves as administrative manager, daughter Donna Virgilio is finance officer; son-in-law James Virgilio oversees maintenance and processing and Brother Ronnie Chiorgno works in the tooling area.
      The transition to new ownership and management was smooth, said Donna Virgilio. "They came in and said "whatever you've been doing, deep doing it the same way," she said.
      Steve McCuin, general manager, said the management team has impressed him.
      "We've gone through a lot of very proactive changes," he said. "One of the important things is that we keep the lines of communication open with all of our employees and we get them involved in different projects that can help us run more efficiently and also help the customer. The owners want everyone involved.
      "It's a family-type atmosphere and it's great teamwork and that's what it takes. It's a good situation."
Pittsfield earned its ISO-9002 certification in only a year, as employee Ron Hoisington proudly displays.

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Copyright 2008 Pittsfield Plastics Engineering Inc., Precision Spools Division