Did you know that the reason Lego blocks exist is in large part due to the machinery maker, who had similar product samples and passed on the idea to Lego founder Ole Kirk Kristiansen when he visited?
The machinery maker would supply Lego with its first injection molding machine, a 1940s-era model. If you do a Google search for "1940s era Lego injection molding machine," you'll see the machine that was used to mold the first Legos, which is housed today at the Private Museum of Lego in Prague. Compare it with the pristine image of a Lego factory today, with rows of state of the art injection molding machines. Lego's newest factory in Nyíregyháza, Hungary, has more than 750 molding machines with space to expand capacity.
Last year, it announced a new state of the art facility in China solely for consumption in the Asian market and then a significant expansion of a factory in Kladno, the Czech Republic, which began in 2013 and will be finished in 2016. In North America, a site in Monterrey, Mexico, has been expanded by over 500,000 square feet. The machines in that facility will pound out ABS bricks for the North and South American markets.
This column isn't about Lego. I'm not saying that everything is awesome. Lego is just an example of how innovation has been actualized in a consumer products company and how machinery and equipment makers have played a part in that.
Really, how do you innovate a plastic play brick? It's not the brick. The basic Lego brick hasn't changed. Since 1963, it's been ABS; you can still fit a Lego brick molded today with a Lego brick molded in the 1940s. Lego innovates the experience. Last year I visited one of Lego's KidsFests in Michigan. It attracted kids and adults who were consumed by the piles of the bricks, the statues built and the ability to move among the piles and statues as if childhood was indeed a NeverLand and these plastic bricks fomented it. Lego has an entire tour schedule of KidsFests where the company goes into major cities and fills a convention hall with millions of bricks.
But Lego is a great, modern day example of integrating innovation and then actualizing it through machinery and making key investments to stay ahead. When doing visits for our monthly feature "On the Factory Floor," I often see similar innovative approaches, albeit on a scale suitable for the company I happen to be visiting. The companies are all different types of plastics processors but the innovation isn't just in the machinery. Innovation is a mindset and not one of these companies is attempting to mimic another successful company. Each is building its own unique model with management that is active, engaged and aware. When I think back to the factories I've toured for our monthly feature, the Innovation Mindset is the common theme, whether the company is an injection molder, a sheet or profile extruder or a blown film producer. It is palpable, from the way that employees are treated to the way plants are organized to the carefully planned strategies.
The strategies that are put in place are closely executed and managed to be able to change if the conditions demand it. It also means making difficult decisions on key personnel. One molder I spoke with admitted that it was painful but key management changes had to be made to ensure the company would get to where it needed to be in a three-year period.
With this March issue of Plastics Machinery Magazine, we are just weeks away from another NPE. The halls of the Orange County Convention Center will be filled with the entire supply chain. Innovations will be everywhere. If your company hasn't adopted the Innovation Mindset, ask yourself why. If it has, ask yourself if it's really working. Don't be afraid of performing an honest audit, especially before you arrive in Orlando to make significant decisions on what machinery and equipment technologies you should purchase. Above all things, remember this: If it wasn't for a machinery maker in the 1940s, Legos wouldn't exist; and if it wasn't for Lego innovation today, these unbelievable purchase orders for machinery and other equipment wouldn't exist.
Build on.
Angie DeRosa, managing editor
