A Cautionary Tale

“Manufacturer A” for many reasons I’m sure ended up shuttering their doors and business with virtually no notice to their customers that contained a surprisingly impressive rolodex of personal care and cosmetic customers. A simple letter stating we are closing and your mold, deco tooling and existing inventory must be shipped within 30 days of the notice given. No explanation, just simply a letter and ultimatum.

A customer approached us requiring 11 molds to be moved most urgently. The problem were these molds ran on smaller, aged blow molding platforms. Options were out there but it’d at minimum require existing production mold modifications to run on more updated platforms or wherever possible if volume was high enough a reinvestment into larger production molds. The additional concern was all existing deco tooling equipment was specialized to the closing supplier’s deco equipment. A true perfect storm requiring almost immediate action.

Our solution was simple considering the timeline needed to choose an alternative supplier as well as provide as much time as possible for mold modifications or builds.

In short, a strategic manufacturer was chosen for the transfer who had both in-house mold shops to support modifications as well as had their own in-house decoration to support on the deco front. 9 molds were transferred and modified while 2 brand new production mold builds occurred.

By time inventory was exhausted, molds moved and modified or rebuilt, only a handful of SKUs ended up being 30 to 45 days late to retailers which sounds as an astounding failure … however, truth be told, this could’ve been very much worse and turned out to be a huge success story internally with the customer’s ownership.

We wouldn’t wish this sort of adversity on any business but when circumstances demand timely action … SkyQ is here to support you & your business as quickly & efficiently as possible while attempting to make every effort to limit working capital impact!