Tour Time

Three Chicago-area mold builders, A-1 Tooling, Chicago Mold Engineering Co. and Industrial Molds Group, will host plant tours during this month's AMBA Convention during which attendees will have the opportunity to experience best-in-class operations. Structured to provide maximum take-away value for both the attendee and host, each plant tour is centered around a specific theme, focused on a particular area of expertise.

A-1 Tool, Melrose Park, IL, will focus on a pure systems approach to building literally any type of mold, from prototypes to any class of production tooling, squeezing time out of the concept-to-market cycle at nearly every step of the process. Chicago Mold Engineering Co., St. Charles, IL, will focus on building the value proposition – from part feasibility to first shots. In these challenging times, Chicago Mold has doubled down by utilizing 5-axis equipment and integrating robots to unattended machining and EDM. Attendees of the Industrial Molds Group tour, Rockford, IL, will see and understand how the company utilizes the concept of employee empowerment, advanced automation and concurrent manufacturing to attack all customer projects. Highlights of this tour event will focus on the tactics implemented in the areas of account management, design and engineering, manufacturing, special machining services and quality assurance.

In addition to the tours, there will be a line-up of sessions covering topics such as high-performance sales, best-in-class mold building strategies and comparative industry data and metrics.

While we are talking about some amazing mold shops, don't forget about our Annual Leadtime Leader Awards. This year's winners will be announced and honored at an Awards Ceremony prior to a Networking Party at 5pm on June 12 at amerimold expo in Rosemont, IL!

*Photo courtesy of Industrial MoldS Group.