Resins – Plastics Packaging Manufacturer

Dave P.

Vice President Purchasing and Supply Chain

Plastics Packaging Manufacturer

North American subsidiary of a global plastics manufacturer achieved 8% annual savings on their $6M annual resins spend

Why did you decide to bring a focus to reducing resins costs?

We were struggling with our sales group always telling us that customer feedback was that our material costs were too high in our quotes.  Plants were also struggling with trying to reduce costs of material, and material is – in our case in every facility we run – in excess of 60% material content.

We just didn’t have the strategy or the data that we needed to go after resins suppliers.  In one case, we had actually tried to engage the resin supplier, and they sat across the table from us and actually said, you’ve got the lowest price you’re ever going to get.  The resin project really, really was instrumental in moving that particular supplier down in price.

How did the project with APD improve your resins cost management?

When APD helped us, we got cost tables, we got other competitive offerings from resin companies that could meet some of the stringent requirements. And there was also a breakdown of the feed stocks that went into the resins that were provided by APD.  It was really, really a, a big step for us because we had never been, we had, we had zero success in resin negotiations.

How would you describe the savings achieved during this project?

Absolute huge home run. Absolutely, that was a grand slam home run. It was pretty impressive over a five-year span as we projected it forward. I don’t recall the ROI, but it was very favorable

Would you recommend other plastics manufacturers engage APD to reduce resin costs?

I want everybody to have the same experience that we had because it was really a good experience and a good savings for us working with APD.