Dymotek creates its own opportunities with LSR

ELLINGTON, Conn.—Dymotek Corp., a small custom molder focused on the demanding niche of liquid silicone molding, has a secret weapon: Its employees at two Connecticut factories, in Ellington and nearby Somers.

Running LSR is a challenge. The injection molding machines are generally similar to those used for the regular molding of thermoplastics, but in most other ways, LSR is the opposite. LSR is a liquid that gets pumped through a cooled nozzle and runner manifold, then gets heated inside the mold and cured to a thermoset.

Dymotek does two-shot molding of LSR and thermoplastics to make some parts. That's somewhat of a technological paradox, because thermoplastics go through a hot manifold and runners, to get cooled down in the mold; but for LSR, if the channels were hot, the LSR would start to cure before it got to the mold.

LSR also blends two components. It's not easy to master the molding: Liquid pumping and dosing controlled by precise mixing and metering. A chemical reaction that takes place inside precisely machined molds cut with tiny vents. Vacuum pumping.

But the result is a flexible and strong thermoset. Properties include good hardness, tensile strength and excellent compression set.

The technology has grown most rapidly in medical, and Dymotek serves that market, too. However, the Ellington-based molder has customers in diverse sectors, including plumbing, electronics, food and beverage, industrial, aviation and aerospace, automotive and telecommunications.

Together, Ellington and Somers run 27 injection molding machines with clamping forces ranging from 35-440 tons. That includes 18 Arburg presses—and a new 550-ton two-shot Arburg is coming later this year. (The other machines are Toyo and Nissei models.)

Finding skilled workers is a major challenge for U.S. manufacturing. LSR is so different that Victor Morando, chief technology officer, said people and training are even more important for Dymotek. The goal, he said, is "to have all the people in your company at that skill level. It's easy to have one or two technical people, or engineers that are knowledgeable, but when you're running around the clock, every single shift you have technical coverage to keep these molds running. So it's tough to get everybody up to speed. But it's been a big commitment of ours, and we've done it. We took the time in, to train everybody so they are very knowledgeable about the process and the equipment."

CEO Norm Forest said Dymotek does in-house training and employee development, coupled with outside education. How else can you build a strong workforce? "Let's face it, they're not gonna show up at the door," he said. "Or if we steal them, we're going to have to pay top dollar. And sometimes, the baggage that comes along with that isn't worth the effort."

Dymotek's extraordinary achievements in employee communication—and solid efforts to cultivate the next generation of plastics leaders—helped the company become the newest Processor of the Year. Plastics News presented officials of Dymotek with the award, and honored all the finalists March 29 at the newspaper's Executive Forum in Naples, Fla.

Dymotek was a finalist for last year's award, which was won by Evco Plastics Inc.

And underscoring the worker-involvement strength, Dymotek won the Plastics News Excellence Award for employee relations last year at the Executive Forum. The Hartford Courant has named Dymotek as one of Connecticut's Best Places to Work for the past three years. Plastics News also has given the firm a Best Places to Work designation.

So Dymotek scored well for the employee relations category, one of seven criteria for the award. The judges—who are Plastics News reporters and editors—also gave the company high marks for financial, quality, customer relations, technology, and industry and public service. On the environmental performance area, Dymotek is reviewing how it stands, to try to get ISO 14001 certification for environmental management.

'Nimble and agile'

Customers praised the company for its LSR expertise, knowledge about tooling and designing products for manufacturing, automated assembly, investment in skilled employees and an effective management.

"Relative to our other suppliers, Dymotek is very nimble and agile," said a purchasing manager from one customer. "They have the ability to change direction and implement solutions very quickly." The purchasing manager added, "Decision-making is very efficient," and he said Dymotek employs good people, invests in them and encourages them to make decisions.

The newest Processor of the Year boasts a 99 percent on-time delivery rate.

Several other customers also made positive comments to the Plastics News judges. "Dymotek has a unique way of combining excellent technical abilities in molding and automated assembly with the understanding of their customer's business needs," said a division president at another company.

The twin criteria of customer relations and quality go hand in hand. And on the quality front, the molder has an external defect rate of 287 parts per million and an internal scrap rate of just 0.6 percent of sales.

Employees lead continuous improvement projects. During a visit to the Ellington factory, Turquoise Hall, a senior quality auditor, explained how a team looked at ways to reduce the amount of non-conforming parts that get pulled off the floor for additional checking and, if necessary, rework. The result: A 30 percent reduction in the parts going into "quarantine."

Hall started at Dymotek three years ago as an operator, and she moved up to quality. Now Hall and the other quality assurance team members support the operators, who are responsible for physical product quality once molding starts. Operators perform their own tests and measurements. The quality department trains them.

Hall spoke with pride as she explained the charts detailing the project, located in an area where, earlier, key employees kicked off the first shift at the daily production meeting led by plant manager Eric Hale.

Jeremy Levesque is one of two RJG Master Molders. He started as an operator 19 years ago and now is a third shift process technician.

Levesque and Hall are representative of Dymotek's promote-from-within philosophy. The company hires for culture and attitude, then provides solid education in LSR molding and manufacturing skills. Of the current 108 full-time employees, 24 percent started as direct labor but have since been promoted. (There are around 130 total, including contract direct-labor people.)

Customers said Dymotek management and shop floor workers are on the same page. And executives make employee development a priority. They send a group to the K show in Germany. Morando takes promising young employees to Austria and Germany to meet LSR mold makers and visit the big Technology Days event at Arburg, Dymotek's injection molding press supplier.

Sales were about the same for 2015 and 2016—$23 million and $23.2 million, respectively. The company is profitable, and all of the money from the sale of the Roof Top Blox product line of adjustable pipe supports went back into Dymotek, company officials said.

"We have a very strong customer base that we can build from," Morando said. This year, he said, Dymotek is getting "a couple of big, major products coming in, so that's a big building year for us." Revenue from many of those projects will not come in until 2018, he said. "2017 is an exciting year for us," he said.

Dymotek has special know-how in components where fluid or air distribution and control is involved—for things like valves, seals and pumps, as well as brackets and housings. Some major products include beverage dispensing systems and sewer gas valves.

LSR competes with less expensive thermoplastic elastomers. But Forest said LSR wins out on the features of compression set and low molded-in stress, especially something that needs to have perfect flatness, and parts that must hold their integrity over a product lifetime. And he said TPEs, as a thermoplastic, are injected in the mold under high pressure and can be packed into the tool to allow for shrinkage. Giving the example of a seal or membrane, he said it can warp, as "the molded-in stress that you get can turn it into a pretzel.

"To have a nice membrane with no imperfections, you've got to do it in silicone," Forest said. You also can overfill liquid silicone rubber. But, he said, LSR is very low-pressure molding of a thermoset. LSR also contracts, but at a very consistent shrinkage rate. Under demands of a product's use, like pressure, LSR goes back to its original shape. "That's why anytime you're trying to control gas and liquid, silicone is it," Forest said.

But it's a challenge. "The levels of complexity are much more significant than straight thermoplastic injection molding," Morando said.

Dymotek officials declined to identify any customers for this story. But Morando said that an LSR and multishot specialist has nothing to offer customers that want the cheapest part. "We want to find a company that itself is excited about innovation. You don't want someone that you have to drive them to innovate," he said.

To help find drum up new business, Morando said Dymotek has been using databases to help research markets and find customer contacts.

History steeped in innovation

Brothers Steve and Tom Trueb began the company in 1990 when they developed a plumbing product: A covering for plumbing under sinks in public restrooms, to protect people in wheelchairs from burns from hot water pipes.

The Lav Guard took off. The Trueb brothers outsourced the molding. Then, in 1997, they hired Forest to establish an injection molding plant. He bought two injection molding machines, Toyos, to run the Lav Guard.

Forest tells the story: "And then what happened was, probably three or four months in, it was all the best equipment, no skimping on equipment. It was kind of like, where I came from that was always my approach as well, because if you're skimping on equipment, you're fighting."

The molding operation was too efficient in pumping out the Lav Guards.

"You have the right material, the right hardware, then it really isn't rocket science," Forest said. "Here we started six to nine months and I needed to shut down because the warehouse was full. We were running too fast and too efficient. And it was like, oh, I just hired all these people—they were contract people but I'm training them, and now I have start over again."

Forest came from Hanson Group, where he learned the value of a strong culture, supporting employees and talking together. "A lot of times I think just comes down to plain, simple communication. We get so busy, we're tied into electronic and this, that or the other thing. If you just talk to people—pick up the phone one time instead of just putting it in an email," he said. "Emails can be perceived incorrectly."

Several other executives came to Dymotek from Hanson, including Morando.

To get the early custom work, Forest called up mold builders in New England. "I said, 'Look, I'll test your mold.' A lot of mold shops did not have mold testing ability. So they would say sure. I would almost give it away, just to get the exposure. And then instead of a process sheet and a bag of parts in a box, we would dress it up with a binder. I would have the material spec in there, part specs. I'd do some SPC on the part, find out if it's in control, or it's not."

At a lot of those mold trials, he said, "the OEM customer would come along as well. And so I'm in front of these folks, and this one was like, 'Norm, we're pretty busy, you guys interested in quoting this stuff?' And that's how it all took off."

The Truebs sold the under-sink plumbing line in 2004, retaining the manufacturing. That same year, Dymotek started using an IQMS ERP system (enterprise resource planning).

Done at the factory in Somers, the Lav Guard production today is a high-speed, automated work cell that links two 220-ton Arburg Alldrive injection presses to two ABB six-axis robots that remove the parts and insert fasteners.

Dymotek also continues to mold the Roof Top Blox, in a 440-ton Arburg.

Dymotek scored well in the criteria of industry and public service, with well-rounded efforts in both areas. On the industry side, the company promotes buying local, standardizing on Arburgs and buying Wittmann robots. Both European equipment suppliers have U.S. headquarters in Connecticut. Branson Ultrasonics also provides welding equipment.

The molder also keeps close relationships with industry associations, including the Manufacturers Association for Plastics Processors (MAPP), the Society of Plastics Engineers, the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, the Connecticut Business and Industry Association and Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology.

In 2015, Dymotek won the President's E-Award from the U.S. Department of Commerce for shipping parts to more than 35 countries.

And Dymotek plays an important role in its small towns in Ellington and Somers. A charity committee picks where to donate in the community, good works like Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the Ellington Farmers Market and youth sports. Factory tours also help, as does a strong participation in Manufacturing Day. It all builds word of mouth.

And then you have the corner coffee shop approach, favored by human resources manager Laura Gayton. "There are times I'm at Dunkin' Donuts and I wanna say, 'Why do you work here? Why don't you come to work at Dymotek?'" she said, laughing. "And there's some good people you just run into anywhere, at a grocery store, and we'll say, 'Hey have you ever thought of working at Dymotek?' We all do that." They wear their Dymotek shirts around town.

The company posts positions on online job sites and sometimes even puts a help wanted sign out front. They also hire through temp agencies.

But let's go back to the Dunkin' Donuts-style hiring. Robert Theriaque, senior project manager, was getting work done on his car at a local dealership. The technician, Justin Goodson, impressed him. Goodson, who had taken some technical college classes, ended up joining Dymotek three years ago, first as an engineering associate and now as manufacturing engineer where he works with automation, controls and secondary processes.

Soon after he started, Morando took Goodson on a trip to Austria to meet an LSR technology supplier. "When he started, he had never seen a molding machine," Morando said. In Austria, as in Germany, skilled factory people begin training at age 15. "By the time they're in their 20s they have a lot of knowledge. Justin came in and—so he had only been here a few months—and after a day or so he was setting up one of the cells that we were developing. Our molding machine was in Austria getting set up for one of the tools, and [the Austrians] came to me after a day, they're like, 'Where'd you find this guy? He is really good.' So right away recognized the fact that he was that good. It was a great advantage for us to find Justin."

Another Dymotek employee was driving a Zamboni at a local ice rink where he met someone from the processor. Connections matter.

Dymotek also has hired several high school interns.

Bringing employees to the roundtable

All new employees go through a three-day onboarding program, using Dymotek's full-time trainer. Forest shows them a large timeline poster on the wall that shows the company history, signed by each employee in the year he or she started. "It gives everybody a sense of belonging to the story and understanding that they were part of the story. It really does give a sense of belonging," Forest said.

Forest is big on employee roundtables. To help pick participants, Dymotek officials review every employee in the company once a year. They get ranked as promotable, perfect in his or her current job or someone who needs improvement.

Top performers are eligible to go into a roundtable—a leadership roundtable at Dymotek, led by CEO Forest, or the multigenerational roundtable.

For the monthly leadership roundtables, Forest gives a reading assignment, and the group discusses topics such as handling conflict, getting past disagreements with your supervisor and body language.

Supervisors nominate people that they think would be good for the multigenerational group, which is organized by local business consultants. Participants go to off-site meetings with peers from other companies, of different ages and experience levels. They talk about common issues. It's the type of event company executives normally would go to, but this for regular employees, not the elites.

Forest explains: "Well I wasn't always an executive. I can tell you that I've had a lot of opportunity and there were a lot mentors in my life."

Why all the emphasis on communication? Forest recalled that, in employee surveys, executives found that although year after year, the company improved on all metrics, the weakest area was always communication.

"So we always work on that," he said. "I keep introducing new things so we communicate more. And I know that how much communicating you do, sometimes it's just not enough because folks are a little scared and they're worried about what's going on."