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Ray Products Company Inc. |
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July 11, 2016 Issue |
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CEOCFO MAGAZINE |
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Custom Heavy Gauge Thermoformer Molds Plastic Enclosures for the Medical Instruments, Bench Top, Desktop and Lab Automation Equipment Industries |
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President
Ray Products Company Inc.
Interview conducted by: Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor, CEOCFO Magazine, Published – July 11, 2016
CEOCFO: Mr. Ray, what is the focus at Ray Products today? Mr. Ray: We are a custom heavy gauge thermoformer; we take sheet plastic, heat it up then mold it into custom shapes using vacuum and pressure.
CEOCFO: For what types of industries and what type of products? Mr. Ray: Most of our business is making custom enclosures used on medical instruments, bench- top, desktop and lab automation equipment. The tight tolerances and highly cosmetic enclosures we can create appeals to those industries. The remaining portion of our business is industrial and outdoor products.
CEOCFO: What do you understand about creating this type of product that perhaps your competitors do not? Mr. Ray: Being a custom molder we have to be receptive to what our customer’s constraints are. A certain customer might have a time-to-market issue where we have to be extremely fast in getting something designed, developed, and manufactured so it can get to market quickly. For somebody else it might be a complex material where they have a certain challenging environment where this product is going to go so maybe it needs to be highly chemical resistant or have extreme impact resistance.
You’re working with all sorts of challenges whether it is a challenging lead-time, a challenging material, or a challenging shape. Because we are a custom job shop, everything is different. Every customer has a new product that we are reviewing for manufacturability. Being able to reduce that learning curve to something that is almost nonexistent is really critical.
CEOCFO: Would a customer come to you knowing more than just this is the end product we want? Are they giving you size specification, material specification, coloring, shape? Mr. Ray: Customers are very savvy. They are driving the conversation. The industrial designers and contract manufacturers we often work with are all well versed on what they want.
They pretty much know the material type and they know the environment. So they’re thinking “we want to mold this in color or we want to paint. We need chemical resistance. We want high impact. We want high gloss.”
Obviously they have a design or a concept of what they are trying to accomplish. We basically take all that information and work with them to help them manufacture the best way possible within the process.
When most people think of plastic, they typically think injection molding. Injection molding is a very high volume process; it’s been around forever. You look at cellphones, calculators, flat panel TV’s, the automotive industry, all of these utilize injection molding.
Our customers are familiar with injection molding, and our conversations start with what changes or adjustments they can make to realize the benefits of our process.
Typically, designs start down a certain path, but somewhere during that design review, it becomes apparent that maybe the process they started out with isn’t the best solution.
We focus on that midrange volume, high hundreds to mid-thousands and we focus on parts that are 10 inches by 12 inches, up to 10 feet by 18 feet. We have a wide range of solutions that we offer that many other processes can’t. Our opportunity really expands the conversation quickly.
CEOCFO: How important is the 67-year history? Do people appreciate that today? Mr. Ray: We turned 67 on April 1st and I really appreciate it. With longevity comes stability. We have the ability to look at what we’ve done, where we’ve been, and where we’re going.
Do I have days where I envy startups with their ability to make their own path? Sure, I have those thoughts, but I have more thoughts about what my grandfather went through, what my father went through, and what I can learn through them. It helps me look at the challenges we face and say, “okay no problem. We got this.”
CEOCFO: Did you always know you were going in the family business? Mr. Ray: I didn’t. I went to college at the University of San Francisco and I worked for a few other companies after graduation. A couple years into my career up there, I was talking to my father on the phone telling him I was looking for a change. He said there was a sales position open if I wanted to interview for it. I came down and interviewed with the sales manager here and I don’t think I even met with my father during the interview process. I found out a couple days later that the opportunity was there if I wanted it.
I moved back to southern California and started in sales. Earlier in life, the company had been a big part of my life. I worked in the plant when I was a teenager. I worked on machines. I would spend summers here. I remember my brother and I would work on machines and work shifts together and carpool in. When I went to college it was like I was going to do something else. I was going to be a college graduate. Coming back to Ray Products wasn’t really on my mind.
Had it been, I probably would have studied something different. I have an international business degree with an emphasis in marketing. If I had known I might have picked something more manufacturing or engineering based. But you pick those things up when you are around them, and I’ve been around manufacturing all my life.
CEOCFO: How do you keep up with new technologies and equipment? Certainly over time there are many changes coming faster and faster--what is your strategy to stay ahead of the game? Mr. Ray: We always want to be a couple years ahead of where the market is right now. We also want to make sure that when we buy equipment we’re buying equipment that’s flexible enough to process materials that don’t even exist yet.
For us, partnering with the right equipment manufacturers is really important. More importantly than that, it’s critical that we have employees who embrace technology and embrace change.
That’s been the secret sauce for us. People are extremely important. You can drop in whatever capability or technology you want, but if you don’t have people who embrace change and challenge themselves to get that machinery to do what it is supposed to do, then you’re looking at a nice piece of equipment that’s not doing anything for you.
You have to invest in new capabilities, you have to have customers who are going to challenge you with those opportunities and you have to have the employees who are going to embrace the challenge. To me those are the three pillars of successful innovation.
CEOCFO: What would you say to people who claim you cannot manufacture profitably in the United States today? Mr. Ray: It depends on the industry. There are definitely things that the US is not well positioned for anymore.
As someone in manufacturing you have a couple choices. You can take the money you made and put it back in your business and invest for the future or you can put it in your pocket. Ray Products wouldn’t have been around for 67 years if we hadn’t been investing in the future the whole time. That investment is what keeps us on the cutting edge.
Some people take a different approach. They are good with equipment being paid for and depreciated. If it works for them that’s great. It’s not my approach.
It is sad to see that there are some things that used to be manufactured in this country that aren’t made here anymore but the genie got let out of the bottle when the US consumer started seeing commodity type items at very low prices.
You have to feed that animal once you have exposed the consumer to it. So at some point, we created some of our own manufacturing challenges.
The way I look at our business, we are a mid-volume, niche manufacturer, so we do not make a million of anything. Our ability to make swift changes and modifications for our customers is still driving many of the business decisions they make. Our position is strong. I think the biggest risk comes once you start making real high volume or commoditized products. What I don’t understand is the ability for people to change their expectations when they go somewhere else verses when they buy it in the US. If the whole world was held to the same standard, delivery standards, quality standards, and material standards, I have a feeling that a lot of the stuff that left this country would have to come back.
CEOCFO: How do you reach out to potential customers? Mr. Ray: We do a fair amount of trade shows. We feel that since we have a product that is tangible, it’s important to get those parts in front of people. Trade shows work very well for us.
Success in a certain market is something that we really try to leverage with other companies or similar markets. Our best advertising is a happy customer. People talk within their organization and people move around. So if you satisfy someone in engineering in one company, they might move to another company, they might talk with someone else in their industry who’s looking for a resource. We get referred a lot just by word of mouth.
To me that demonstrates that we do what we say and we follow through.
In manufacturing there are always challenges. Even the best run companies sometimes have delays, and disruptions. But, it is how you deal with these challenges that will either win or lose customers. It’s sharing information as soon as you learn it. It’s being truthful about what the challenges are, how you’re going to fix them, and what you’re doing to correct it going forward.
Our customers are realistic, and they value honesty.
That’s how we get a lot of our business. Obviously, we use technology with our website and LinkedIn and other things. I think it’s a great thing to look someone in the eye, shake their hand, and thank them for purchasing product from you. Those are some of my favorite things. But today, so much happens with emails and websites and people looking for solutions at odd hours of the night so you have to be able to reach the right person at the right time.
CEOCFO: Are there services you offer that are underutilized in general? Are there areas that you are surprised are not getting traction? Mr. Ray: I am surprised that there are still a fair amount of people out there that don’t understand the value of the process or that the process is capable of doing certain things.
I’ll still be in meetings and we will be talking about certain things that we do day-in and day-out like molding in color. We can buy material that is any color you want and we can mold it so that when the part comes out of the tool it has a nice texture on it and it has the exact color you want.
Sometimes I’m surprised when people say, “wow I had no idea you could do that” or “I thought you had to have draft to successfully mold a part” or “wow that part looks amazing.”
To me that means that we’re not doing a good enough job getting out and really educating the people who can use this information.
I really don’t know how to do it any better. Customer education is something we focus on and invest in significantly, but I still find myself scratching my head.
The other thing I thought would be a much bigger deal is the fact that our materials can be recycled and we can also process recycled materials. To me, that’s a hot button issue that some customers get excited about and some industries get really excited about. But others don’t seem to care. At some point, that is going to be a huge catalyst for growth for everybody knowing that we can use recycled materials or that parts we manufacture using thermoforming can be recycled versus having to go into a landfill.
Large parts are another thing we have committed to. We can mold a part that is 10 feet by 18 feet on a machine that’s the third or fourth biggest in the US. We see large parts as being a huge opportunity in the heavy truck industry, portable storage industry, solar industry, or even the medical industry.
By molding one large part, you can eliminate multiple smaller parts which reduces assembly and handling costs. You also have the ability to make something that is seamless. So if water or moisture are an issue, you get rid of those seams by making it into one large part.
Large parts also allows you to run a different material thickness so you can reduce the overall weight of a single large part compared to the weight of multiple parts coming together.
Usually you have less framework, fewer attachment points, and less total weight. We see a lot of opportunity in the large part arena and there aren’t many west coast companies doing large parts. It gets us involved in unique opportunities.
Typically these opportunities have always gravitated to the Midwest. Historically, that was because many of the users of large parts are located in the Midwest. Agricultural business, large construction equipment: big machines, big parts, and the heavy truck business is out there.
Today, we’re giving large-scale manufacturers located on the western half of the US the opportunity to cut their shipping and delivery costs for large parts. That has been an extremely exciting process. |
“Today, we’re giving large-scale manufacturers located on the western half of the US the opportunity to cut their shipping and delivery costs for large parts.” - Brian Ray
Ray Products Company Inc.
Contact: 909-390-9906 x.216
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Brian
Ray