Reflecting on 2022 and 25 years with Tex Plastics
9 January 2023
As 2022 passes and I chalk up new milestones with Tex Plastics, including 25 years since I started with the company, it seems fitting to end the year on a high, winning the Plastics Industry Awards.
Changes at Tex Plastics
During my two and a half decades since joining Tex Plastics back in 1997, as Technical Sales Manager, there have been lots of changes both within the business and the industry. I'm now Managing Director, and I'm a living example of our 'home grown timber' policy of developing talent from within the workforce. Tex Plastics is one limited company across two facilities, rather than the two locations trading independently. With both sites increasing production capacity, and developing niche injection moulding areas, the future looks bright.
Changes in the plastics injection moulding business
The last 5 years have probably witnessed the greatest changes and challenges within the industry as a whole. With Brexit, material price increases and shortages, a pandemic and lockdowns, resulting in sky high container prices, unpredictable import deliveries and broken supply chains. With near full employment, recruitment and retention have been challenging and required innovative solutions. At the time of writing this, inflation is in double digits and energy prices are increasing at an unsustainable rate for many smaller businesses. Thankfully our conversion to more energy efficient machines across the wider manufacturing process has helped Tex Plastics in this area. Although our energy cost increases are still measured in the 100's of percent - which 12 months ago would have been unbelievable.
More re-shoring and shorter supply chains
In my early years with Tex Plastics, the greatest threat was losing tooling and moulding to China. The good news is that the last few years have brought to light the challenges depending on a Far East supply chain. Many manufacturers who made the switch were not able to produce a finished product as they awaited the uncertain delivery of low cost plastic components. As a result, numerous companies across various industries now choose to have their plastic parts production back in Britain. As a result China is now used more strategically within the tooling and injection moulding process.
Niche plastic injection moulding projects
As a business we've adapted to the market needs and found our niche in partnerships and product development, with a collaborative approach to develop a concept to prototype utilising our 'design for manufacture' team. This change has resulted in more challenging technical moulding being taken on, with true collaboration producing better products and problem free production runs. Our investment across the two facilities has placed us in a strong position and given each site a more defined strategic focus. Barnstaple has become even more focused on high tech and medical moulding, and extended its white room and clean room manufacturing capability. Derby has focused on the larger technical moulding projects, expanding its capacity and in-house finishing capability.
As a result we’re excited by the challenges 2023 will bring and look forward to helping clients old and new develop and manufacture better products.