In the world of job shops, one Illinois-based company has strived to become one of the more diverse operations in the plastics industry. Piper Plastics Inc. offers fabrication, machining and distribution of plastic and metal products.

Piper's machining department took off after completion of its first job, the production of these 8-inch-thick acrylic valves.

Piper Plastics was founded in 1980 by Marty and Dolores White, who set out to build a diverse fabricating company. Since then, the company has grown to an estimated $10 million in gross sales. Marty White is now semi-retired and acting as corporate CEO, while Dolores is the acting corporate secretary. Since 1995, daily operations of Piper have been under the control of their two sons, Randy and Bruce.

In the interim, the business has grown from the two-car garage where it began to include two 35,000-square-foot shops, located in Mundelein, IL, and Chandler, AZ, which each employ 45 people. The two shops actually operate as separate entities with Piper Plastics Inc. being the one holding company.

"We get our share of difficult jobs, but the market is a little bit different here than out west," said Bruce White, president of Piper Plastics in Mundelein, IL. "Typically, we stay pretty much involved with the food and pharmaceutical industries."

Randy White, Bruce's brother, heads the Arizona operation which deals largely with chemical and corrosion-resistant materials since they are very active in the semiconductor and governmental work. Also, a good portion of work is in the electronic field producing small, sophisticated parts made of high performance materials.

Although Piper machines metals as well, it specializes in machining, fabricating and distributing of plastics. Starting out in White's home in 1980, Piper was focused on fabricating, and has continued to machine boxes and welded tanks and liners. A little over one-third of Piper Plastics business is dedicated to fabricating with the other two-thirds divided between machining and distribution. According to White, that allocation is what has changed greatly over the last 18 years.

"We have so much equipment now, I would say we have to be one of the largest single-branch locations in the United States," White said. "We aren't in the same class as say a Cadillac Plastics, who has a plant in every major city, but for a single branch like ourselves, we have got to be one of the biggest, if not the only job shop of this size."

Piper Means Plastics, Not Necessarily Airplanes Prior to his retirement, Piper Plastics Inc. founder Marty White, spent his time away from work relaxing in the air while flying airplanes. Piper planes to be specific. He enjoyed it so much that in 1980, after many years as a regional manager for Cadillac Plastics, he started his own plastics business, choosing the name "Piper" for his company. "When my dad started the company he was flying a Piper airplane, a smaller aircraft, and it seemed like a catchy name," said Bruce White, president of the Mundelein-based company. "Since he was starting a small company of his own and he needed a name, he contacted Piper Aircraft to check and see if he could use the name Piper. The rest is history." Piper Plastics took off. It has since assumed the use of a Piper plane in its logo and has done some work for Piper as well, making headlight covers for the planes. The lenses which are used in front of all the headlights and lights on the planes, are made from acrylic, also fabricated by Piper. "Piper Plastics started in my parents' garage and we worked from there for less than a year before we began to run out of room," said White. "It is hard to believe where we are at now. My dad really took some risks to get us to this point. "He saw a lot of potential in this market and took a chance. I could not imagine starting a business today the way he did. When he chose to start Piper we were all in either high school or college, a time when his personal expenses were the highest and he was relying on his experience and a relatively young company to pay the bills. That type of risk today would be outrageous with five kids in school. He was a risk taker with the thinking that hopefully he could make it work, and he did. It was the smartest thing he ever did. Now it is my responsibility to keep it going in a positive direction. I hope I am in a position to retire when I am 54 like Dad did."

A flexible company that takes projects from start to finish all the way to installation, Piper allows customers an opportunity to manage their time by focusing on other needs within their company. Rather than going from plastic fabricator to metal machine shop to an installer, they can let Piper Plastics handle the entire job. White said customers can get the whole package with one call because Piper is willing to try to produce just about anything to get the quality end-result desired by its customers.

"All we did in the beginning was offer customers cut-to-size parts and finished materials and now that is such a small part of what we do," explained White. "Now they just buy the finished product from us and they are done. We like that better as well because it adds value to our finished product. When we can make it from start to finish they aren't going to be able to find that type of job shop anywhere else."

Fewer companies who machine a finished plastic part can also machine the metal brackets that go with it, or assemble it and install it into the customer's building, White added.

"For the last four to five years we have had customers who call us, tell us what they need and the situation, then we go to them and help design it, price it, make it here at Piper, do all the machining, fabricating and assembly and then bring it to them and install it," White said. "A complete turnkey product. For most plastic distribution companies, it is very rare to do machining. But handling all the installation is even more rare. I don't even know of any companies that do that. We actually have two employees who do installation of our products full-time."

Piper Plastics thermoforms, machines and fabricates its parts in a 35,000-square-foot building. "Our personnel are also available to do on-site plastic fabrication at your facility," said sales manager Chris Elfering.

The fabrication equipment Piper uses includes panel saws with cutting capacity up to 4 inches thick, and 12 feet long, a 10-inch Delta table saw and a Delta bandsaw. Piper also uses 4-foot by 4-foot heat forming ovens, a 12-foot HTC 90 ton press brake and an 8 foot wire heat bender to help in forming the parts.

The company also has a separate department for machining plastics and metal. "We have accumulated over $2 million in CNC mills and lathes equipment in less than 10 years," White said. "Our machining department is growing very fast. We just purchased a new CNC lathe to add to our machining department, forcing some adjustment of the current layout of the shop."

Piper's machining department also includes five Fadal vertical machining centers, a Mazak vertical machining center and a Hurco vertical machining center. Along with an Anilam CNC vertical mill, Piper also uses a Mori Seiki SL300AMC CNC turning center, a Mazak quick-turn 18N lathe with a complete collet assembly from 1/2 inch thru 3/18 inch. A power chuck with steel and aluminum jaws is also utilized as is a Eurotech Elite 730 SL with Fanuc Series O-I Control.

Other equipment includes the Bridgeport Series II CNC and Enco vertical mills, Saeillo lathes and the Wells horizontal band saw, the Hammond polishing and buffing lathe, Despatch-LAD 1-42 CNC annealing heating oven and a Miller Syncrowave 250 arc welder.

Piper also has a separate department for screw machines. "Cost effectiveness and quality assurance is the motto of our screw machine department," said Elfering. "Whether plastic or metal, we can adjust to any manufacturing needs making bearings, bushing, spacers or nozzles, the blanket orders help keep costs down and value high. Our state-of-the-art equipment allows us to manufacture products in either low, medium or high production quantities."

Among the equipment utilized in the screw machine department are: an Acme Grindley spindle machine, Davenport multi-spindle machine, Brown & Sharp #2 Automatic and the Brown & Sharp 2G Automatic screw machines. A Model 510 Browne & Sharpe Toolmaker and Republic surface grinders accompany a full complement of attachments and tooling for thread rolling, recessing, backdrilling and tapping. The screw machine department also includes a Mazak QT 18N CNC turning center, a Webb Tool Room and LeBlond lathe, a Fadal VMC 3016 vertical machining center and a Bridgeport mill.

"We realized about six or seven years ago that if we wanted to grow the machine side of our job shop, we were going to have to have good quality and good people. It gives us an accountability," said Elfering. "In two years we have only had two recalls. People might complain about our price, but we never receive complaints about our quality on cutter finishes and non-deburred parts."  

Full Distribution Service Piper Plastics' distribution service stocks domestic manufactured materials, full sheets or sheet cut to specific size requirements. The company's inventory includes a complete (A-V) selection of sheet, rod, tube, film and related plastic materials: ABS, acetal, acrylic, adhesives, anti-static plastics, bushing stock, Celcon, CPVC, cutting boards, Cyrolite, HP, Delrin, FEP roll covers, FRP panels, hi-impact, styrene, Hydex 4101, Hydlar, Hyzod, Hyzod SR, Kel-F, Kynar, Lexan, mirror, Mylar, Norprene, Noryl, Novus, nylon, PBT, PEEK, PEEK- glass filled, phenolic, polycarbonate, construction film, polyethylene, polystyrene, PVC, PVC foam, Radel, Rulon, Staticon, Teflon, thermalux polysulfone, Torlon, Tygon tubing, Turcite rod and tubing, Ultem, Ultem glass filled, UHMW, Vespel, vinyl outdoor and indoor weather curtain and Vivak.

"Piper includes complete quality assurance documents with each machined or fabricated order," said Elfering. "This saves time and money for our customers by reducing their incoming inspection requirements."

The company is MIL-I45208A approved and is currently undergoing review for ISO9000. Piper's inspection equipment includes the Starret C.M.M. with a computerized measure manager hardware/software with graphical user interface that works with the Gage-Master 14 inch optical comparator with digital read out and the 18 by 24 granite surface plate. Piper's quality control also utilizes the Fowler electronic ultra height gage, which measures 0-24 inches, complete thread and pin gages, which measures 0-48 inches, micrometers and dial calipers.

"We have two full-time inspectors that assure the orders are right the first time, giving full documentation that is shipped with all of our orders," said Elfering. "That way the customer knows exactly what they are getting. Every part that leaves here gets a quality review. The CMM allows you to manually use a probe, along with the use of software, to measures each piece checking feet, y and z angles. We run on first piece inspection and if we find any dimensions off, that piece is thrown out and the engineers start over. The in-process inspection and the final inspection are a percentage of our overall quantity sampling out of what is sometimes a 50,000 piece job."

Elfering said that this prevents Piper from getting a week into a job and finding out that something is wrong or a dimension is off.

"We concern ourselves with the nuts and bolts of the manufacturing industry &endash; food products, pharmaceutical, electronics," White said. "Where we used to just do little glass houses and finished parts, we now are working every day with Fortune 500 Companies. We aren't just concentrating on one industry, we have a broad customer base and capabilities to get the job done. We are more than just a distributor."

Elfering said one reason Piper has been so successful is that it hasn't had to rely on just one part of the industry.

"During the down time or hard times the last 20 years, we just told ourselves that we just aren't going to participate in the slowdowns," said Elfering. "We aren't just going to wait for the phone to ring, we have to go out and reach the people. We now have an on-line Web site and an advertisement in the Thomas Register. We attend local trade shows and send out direct mail pieces constantly, keeping our options open for new work. I usually won't say no to any job until I try it or learn more about it. We try to be flexible and cater to our customers. We will try anything once."

For that reason, Piper has been able to accumulate some important players in the plastics industry as major customers. "Some of our Fortune 500 customers have been with us since our early days, like Abbot Labs, SC Johnson's Wax, Motorola and INTEL," White said.

"We also cover the other side of the gamut as well, working with our competition and smaller size companies and job shops," White said. "Some machine shops that don't machine plastic will ask us to do the machining for them and we are happy to accommodate them."

During the initial years, Piper Plastics was mainly fabricating: cut-to-size parts, Lexan guarding for equipment, acrylic display boxes and fixtures, as well as glued pieces and display work. It wasn't until 1985 that Piper received its first machining job.

"We didn't do any machining when we started, it was all fabrication," White said. "We bought our first machine just to complete our first big job."

The first machining job was in the mid-1980s. A company contacted Piper to make clear valves from acrylic instead of steel. The valves were machined out of 8-inch-thick acrylic with a tremendous amount of holes throughout. It could be used as an actual working model.

"That is when the machining part of our company began," White said. "It is now the fastest growing aspect of our company, controlling a major amount of our current business," .

Another interesting job involved a toilet bowl cleaner manufacturer.

"They wanted Piper Plastics to make a working-model toilet bowl out of acrylic for a commercial," Elfering said. "The commercial would represent the way the toilet bowl cleaner stacked up against the competition."

Elfering said that Piper has also made electrical connectors, bushings for fitness equipment, guarding for production equipment and automated packaging glove boxes for containment of potent drugs.

One recently completed project involved creating clear plastic ductwork to replace galvanized sheet metal in a greenhouse.

"We were contacted by a local university to fabricate ductwork out of 1/4-inch-thick acrylic for its greenhouse," explained Elfering. "They made construction drawings on how they were going to get the duct work from point A to point B and then we made machine drawings to show what we would have to do to get the job done with the elbows and flanges. The Chicago and Illinois Zoning Board had to, first off, approve the plans before we could get started. Then, once that was done, we were able to get to work. They engineered it and we fabricated it."

Clean Air Work Station Piper Plastics combines state of the art technology with customized fabrication to create an individualized sterile working environment. Unlike any other unit currently available, Piper Plastics Clean Air Work Station is custom tailored to each customer's unique and specific needs. The unit provides easy handling of materials while maintaining an aseptic environment. "These boxes are used in what is supposed to be a sterile environment, to contain hazardous drugs and other materials, so they need to prevent oxygen from entering," said Chris Elfering, sales manager. "We actually got into this while doing a service call for a pharmaceutical company. They had called us when they were in a bind because they didn't want to have to send their glove box over to the manufacturer in France to get it repaired. They called us to see if we could fix the problem and we did. Shortly after, we began our own line of glove boxes for the industry." With the material contained within the box, as well as from the external environment and personnel, it is protected from contamination. Applications include pharmaceutical sterility testing, pharmaceutical research and development, biological research, aseptic research, food processing, microelectronic quality control inspection, component manufacturing and research and development as well as aseptic loading and unloading of autoclaves, freeze driers and ovens.

The duct work and 90-degree drops and bends consumed 45 sheets of 4-foot by 8-foot, 1/4-inch, clear Lexan polycarbonate and 110 man hours.

"Once we had the ductwork formed and put together, we stood them up in the corner of the shop to save some room. It actually looked a bit like Stonehenge, if you can imagine," Elfering said.

Though the slogan reads, "Innovative Solutions To Your Plastics Needs," Piper Plastics has also created a niche for itself by machining metal, aluminum, titanium and brass. Some of its finished parts have even ended up in artificial hearts and outer space.

Piper experienced a 24 percent growth last year, and with continuous expansion of its capabilities, adding one new piece of machinery a year, Piper's job shop will continue its climb, White said.

"We have really just made a commitment to improve every aspect of our company," Elfering said. "We are offering better equipment and quality to our products and we have a more experienced workforce every day. Our approach to our customers is better and our quoting process has improved as well. What we want to do is continuously improve our customers idea of what we do. Our next purchase within the next year will be another CNC router. Our biggest machine is a Fadal 6030 milling center. Being more and more versatile has done nothing but help us. Half of our business sales money is from distribution, where we offer cut-to-size for our customers.

"We can usually adapt to any situation," Elfering said. "We want to be strong in a well-rounded base of areas. That way if the economy does go south in one area, we can still make profits by relying on our other areas of the company."

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