Stephen Judd once used his physics background to advise the U.S. armed forces on defense contracts.

Today, Judd is the not-so-secret weapon behind Advanced Plastiform Inc., the thermoforming company he and wife Deborah own and run in Raleigh, N.C.

Although the company forms, machines and assembles trays and other material handling items, API is not your typical thermoformer/machinist. Using Judd's experience and scientific training, the company has increased its contribution to a project, above and beyond simply following the blueprints and standard machining, said General Manager Rich Jackson. According to Jackson, Judd will often advise customers on making small changes, or doing things a little different "to save them a lot of money," Jackson said.

API thermoforms both large and small parts. Pictured is one of its larger projects, produced for a car wash manufacturer.

Telecommunications companies for whom API makes channel connectors to carry fiber optics invite Judd to trade shows so that he can explore their products' possibilities with prospective customers, Jackson said. "The customers love to deal with him when they're talking about a brand new product."

It's not as challenging as exploring the effects of radiation in space, part of the defense consulting Judd did for C.S. Draper, a Cambridge, MA, lab formerly associated with M.I.T. But API lets him merge his scientific skills with Deborah's financial skills. The result has been a business open to innovation but mindful of the bottom line that has grown in 10 years, from two employees working in a 5,000-square-foot space to 30 employees in a 33,000-square-foot building. Projected 1998 revenues $2.4 million.

API uses ABS, polyethylenes, styrenes and polycarbonates to thermoform, machine and assemble a variety of forms including trays and cases for materials handling. The materials it uses are typically in the 0.050 to 0.500-inch thickness range, making it a heavy gauge thermoformer.

Plastics materials are thermoformed in a Brown three-station rotary thermoformer. A soon to be purchased five-axis CNC router by Quintax (formerly Canton Industrial Systems) will be used in conjunction with a Thermwood CNC router. Bandsaws by Stamets, Rockwell and Delta are also used to machine the pieces, which are then assembled by employees using a variety of hand tools, from deburring knives to electric drills made by Hitachi, Bosch, Porter-Cable and DeWalt.

Although automated, API is not so large that customers cannot request changes, even during production, said Jackson. For example, one customer changed a drilled hole size on a thermoformed shipping tray from 3/16-inch to 1/4-inch holes within the span of one day. The customer had decided the smaller holes didn't let out water fast enough when the trays were stacked outside in the rain, Jackson said.

As part of the quality control process, particularly in repeat jobs, Jackson takes color photographs of each step in a project and includes them in a job sheet along with the machine settings. Sometimes four months will elapse before they are needed again, and employees may have gone on to other tasks, he said. He requires employees new to a task, or those who may have forgotten it, to reorient themselves by studying the job sheet.

Employees in a small shop need to be flexible, Jackson said. It is a quality that can come in handy when products range from air-conditioner housings for backhoes, to the shipping trays used to transport painted shelves of office furniture without chipping.

"Some companies use trays and pallets to send parts through their assembly line or to ship their parts to customers," Deborah Judd said. "We'll design specifically for the shape of a part and the size of a conveyor system," she said.

The company will also meet anti-static requirements. "We don't rule anything out," she says.

API has made cases for home delivery of ice cream, insulating them with foam. It has fabricated bicycle cases, trays to carry automotive parts from supplier to assembly plant and fume hoods for instrument sterilization in medical and science laboratories.

Adding to its diversity, API created a cigarette display that attaches to convenience store windows. Fabricated for a cigarette manufacturer, the display features cigarettes popping out of a large 3-D styrene pack decorated with distortion printing.

Distortion printing is a tough one, Deborah Judd said, and few thermoformers do it. Silk screening a design on a 3-D form requires changing the design at corners and in other areas, something API uses CAD/CAM to achieve.

Sometimes, Deborah Judd said, she cringes when Steve becomes intrigued with a design she is afraid will be complicated to carry out. She said she has threatened to write a book on "the entrepreneurial disease."

"They (prospective customers) have got the fever, and he gets caught up in it. He's just intrigued by any new idea," she said. "His classic phrase -- we used to hear this all the time -- 'No problem.'"

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Plastics Machining & Fabricating
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