The offshoring of manufacturing over the past 20 years has challenged remaining domestic manufacturers to reduce costs in order to remain competitive in the global marketplace.
Carolina Color has strived to reduce customers’ coloring cost with a willingness to embrace automation and solve tough problems.
The company has seen a lot of manufacturing changes in the plastics industry over the years, particularly in the area of dosing raw materials more accurately. The number of choices can overwhelm even seasoned veterans when confronted with choosing between multiple options.
This past year, Carolina Color faced an interesting business decision arising from the launch of two new coloring technologies. While many customers and prospects saw fit to switch to the company’s coloring product lines, some still had concerns regarding efficient delivery. As a result, Carolina Colors decided to play a proactive role in finding an automated solution that the customers could install and use in order to achieve a cost advantage.
After considerable research, Carolina Color decided to integrate automated, low-dosing feeders into the company’s selling proposition, thereby providing a workable color delivery solution for customers interested in colorant technology.
After investigating multiple technologies, Carolina Color signed a distribution and service agreement with an Israeli automated weighing and control system manufacturer called Liad. This was not an easy or risk-free decision given the considerable financial commitment required to build out this capability.
As a result of this strategic investment with Liad, Carolina Color gained the capability to offer customers reduced cost to color their finished plastic parts by utilizing lower let-down ratios. The Carolina Color/Liad partnership has created new markets for both businesses, with the goal of ensuring continued steady growth over the next several years.