Leading Hot Runner Manufacturer Standardizes Across Global Footprint, Powering Efficiencies and Productivity
Folding boxes, drinking cups, wall dowels, computer housings, TV sets, drills, the bumpers and exterior mirror housings of cars, and thousands of other everyday plastic products are manufactured using the injection molding process. For this core process of the plastics processing industry, INCOE (INjection COntrol Engineering) has been supplying hot runner systems worldwide since 1958. These systems ensure the molten plastic is fed into the molds that then create the final parts.
INCOE started out as a tool shop but early on grappled with the question of how to improve the transfer of the melt and avoid waste caused by solidified plastic from the sprues. The hot runner, a melt feed system with heated flow channels, was the answer, and INCOE was the first to bring it onto the market as an independent product. Over the years, many patented developments of this technology followed, and INCOE pioneered advancements for both hot runner technology and plastic injection molding.
Headquartered in Michigan, INCOE manufacturing locations are strategically located across North America, Europe, Asia, and South America. Dirk Schubert, Head of IT and the Head of Quality Management at INCOE International Europe, emphasized, “Our priority is to support the plastics industry in the manufacturing and development of new products, to provide our customers with first-class service, and to do so worldwide.”
To better anticipate and meet the needs of its customers, INCOE International Europe, based in Germany, realized it needed to deploy more comprehensive and powerful ERP system. “Our ERP was locally focused, but our customers demanded that we work more globally,” Mr. Schubert revealed. “We had experience with other solutions, which gave us a good sense of we needed to work with for our factories worldwide to design and produce hot runner solutions for the global market, across all time zones, with a globally consistent ERP language.”
Additionally, as individual INCOE plants proliferated and expanded on different continents, different processes developed, and the need for a unified, global system became apparent. Epicor Kinetic had already been implemented in the United States. Mr. Schubert pinpointed, “Epicor Kinetic was the right software to truly deliver the efficiencies that ERP promises, with simplified processes and the elimination of multiple interfaces.”
He continued, “We needed a solution to lead us into the future, and Epicor’s follow-the-sun presence fit the bill.”
Implementation went smoothly with no disruption to operations, in fact, INCOE customers were later surprised to learn about the change as there had been no interference in service. “We were spoiled when it came to automation and had the goal of converting processes that already worked well without major adjustments,” Mr. Schubert admitted. “We knew it would be a significant challenge to implement this consistently in the new system.”
Epicor Kinetic was the right software to truly deliver the efficiencies that ERP promises, with simplified processes and the elimination of multiple interfaces. We needed a solution that could lead us into the future, and Epicor’s follow-the-sun presence fit the bill.
Another hurdle was incorporating global process requirements from America and China into the system, including the standardization of item numbers, nomenclature, part names, and global templates for creating drawings and documents.
INCOE also wanted to preserve its automatic BOM transfer, which moves parts lists from the CAD system directly to the ERP system. Mr. Schubert explained, “We needed a highly efficient, fully automated, and integrated solution to shorten lead times. Other ERP systems had difficulty automatically transferring data from a CAD system to an ERP system.”
Epicor consultants and a few external consultants helped to ensure a successful transition. “We migrated from our old system to Epicor Kinetic without a single day of downtime,” Mr. Schubert recalled.
“We had customers who were very surprised that we were able to introduce a new ERP system that could be up and running smoothly on day one. We seamlessly handled every part of our process. As a result, Epicor has already positively impacted our reputation with our customers.”
The introduction of Epicor Kinetic allowed INCOE to consolidate and standardize all part numbers, including part nomenclature, part names, and global templates for the creation of drawings and documents worldwide. This has been critical, enabling INCOE to react quickly globally and meet ever-shorter lead times.
Mr. Schubert divulged, “Before Epicor, there were always a lot of clarifying questions for global projects. For example. what are the article number and part name of a specific hot runner component for our Chinese colleagues? We would send drawings back and forth, creating delays that impacted customer service. Everything in our industry is time-critical.”
Even the best vehicle cannot survive in the long term without an expert workshop nearby that provides support with maintenance, repairs and care. Epicor delivers a complete solution—excellent, stable software that works well with responsive, expert support when you need it.
Epicor helps enable INCOE to manage projects quickly and efficiently from a global perspective quickly. Their philosophy of producing locally helped to ensure flexible customer service and avoid lengthy delivery routes (with the corresponding emissions) is supported and expanded by the consistent ERP system. The production sites around the world are becoming more uniform, as each one now has the same level of knowledge about the customer projects.
Ordering a product in the USA that is designed in Germany and then manufactured and delivered in China is now a standard process that runs seamlessly. “When fulfilling replacement orders, the INCOE team on site can use the ERP system to quickly and safely identify the correct spare parts and have them shipped from the nearest service location without having the parts travel around the globe. In this way, the Epicor ERP system also helps us to reduce our CO2 footprint,” Mr. Schubert stated.
With the solution successfully deployed and delivering tangible benefits in project management, advanced planning, and scheduling, Mr. Schubert is shifting his focus to rolling out Epicor Kinetic screens. He shared, “We are utilizing a phased approach to gradually unlock Epicor Kinetic functions and ensure a positive user experience for our teams. Our goal is to offer the company's different departments tailor-made homepages, the structure of which should be configurable to a certain extent for individual users.”
“I have a vision of the future where employees have a personalized start screen with pertinent dashboards and queries corresponding to their daily work. This will make each workstation more efficient by easily and immediately providing the necessary information.”
Mr. Schubert derives confidence from the fact that Epicor is exceptionally stable and highly available. He noted, “For global companies that produce on different continents, Epicor Kinetic offers a reliable, powerful, and agile tool for managing a worldwide business.”
Mr. Schubert elaborated that he views software like a car: “Even the best vehicle cannot survive in the long term without an expert workshop nearby that provides support with maintenance, repairs, and care. Epicor delivers a complete solution—excellent, stable software that works well with responsive, expert support when you need it.”
