Speck Plastics Masters ‘Just In Time’ and Makes New Meaning for the Term

--Vacuum-forming plastics company optimizes flexible processes and creates success out of 11th hour requests--

Nazareth, PA, March 3, 2008 – Speck Plastics Inc. helps companies like Bombardier, Crayola and Tyco every day. With what? Plastic parts that are needed in either smaller quantities or with design demands that make injection molded plastics an overly costly or less-than-ideal option.

Speck Plastics creates vacuum-formed (also called thermoformed) plastic parts in its 65,000 square foot Nazareth facility. The plant once housed machinery and equipment for creation of burial vaults, and is thought to also house a ghost or two. Founded by the current owners’ grandfather, since 1954 the facility has generated countless plastic parts for everything from medical equipment to ice machines to submarines. “We have a few contracts we can’t even talk about,” stated co-owner Suzann Speck.

Despite the intriguing history, the firm has worked hard during the past few years to master “just in time” delivery and support growing customer demands. “Our customers have sudden needs from time to time that can’t possibly be anticipated. The nature of our business deems that we can’t create parts to store in inventory, at least not without the customer’s prior approval. It wouldn’t make sense, because of the rate at which design modifications are made,” remarked Walt Speck III, the firm’s president.

Other plastic part manufacturers will use down-time to build in additional inventory for their high-order customers, knowing this inventory will potentially go to waste. Not Speck Plastics. Instead, they use this time to work on the business and the processes, like the Speck QualAssure Process™ that every Speck team member lives by. This process ensures that extra care is taken at each step it takes to manufacture a part, so that it’s created right the first time.

The owners and team at Speck Plastics have managed to wisely plan for extra capacity without presenting financial risk to the firm. “The facility and machinery we’ve carefully built and modified over the years now allows us to create a level of customer service that our competition can’t touch,” boasted Suzann Speck.

“Just in time has taken on a new meaning for us,” she went on to say. The firm has been known to receive a call at 10:00AM with a special order request, have parts made that same day and ship them out for delivery the next morning. “We work as a finely tuned team of both machinery and people, and our process also ensures we don’t jeopardize other customer orders.”

“We work smart and we work in our customers’ best interest. We’ve built many long-term customer relationships that way,” Walt Speck concluded.

About Speck Plastics
Speck Plastics is a family-owned business founded by one of the original pioneers of the plastics industry. Together, with their extended family of employees, they’ve built a company that leads the industry in thermoforming plastics. Speck Plastics offers customers an experience that simply can not be found with other companies. Customers are busy trying to get your invention created, get an important part for their machine or simply get a part produced well and for a reasonable cost. Speck Plastics does everything possible to help each and every one of their customers gets their parts quickly – and correctly the first time.