Technology has enabled Manfred and Barbara Stolle, the husband-and-wife team who founded Stolle Technology in 1997, to embrace a practice known as lights-out manufacturing. The term was coined in the 1980s, at a time when designers and engineers envisioned robots and computers running factories without any human intervention at all. Real-world experience proved, however, that human expertise in the form of designers and software engineers is essential to precision manufacturing. Today there’s a clear division of labor. The humans are off the floor, devising instructions for the machines and monitoring their work by computer. The machines? They work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They don’t get tired, they don’t complain.
At Stolle Technology, the client provides specifications: the faceplate has to fit in a dashboard of certain dimensions and have certain precise characteristics. The company then uses computer-assisted-design software to create a 3-D model of the mold. A team of programmers then writes code for the machines. A machine can spend thousands of hours to make a single mold, grinding or burning away the metal (usually steel) to meet precise dimensions. Stolle then delivers the mold to the manufacturers, who take it from there–injecting molten plastic into the molds to make exactly the parts they need to complete a car, an air conditioner, or a piece of furniture or medical equipment. “The computerized machine makes one injection mold for the customer and then they use the mold to make millions of parts,” says Manfred Stolle, adding that the company produces 65 to 100 injection molds a year in the company’s newly renovated 18,000-square-foot facility.
Harnessing the power of massive machines and robots allows Stolle Technology to compete against established Chinese and Portuguese companies to win lucrative contracts. In an industry where perfection is essential, sophisticated Swiss- and German-made machines permit the company to slash the time it takes to design the car-radio faceplate from eight to 12 weeks to half that. “This business is very competitive and not just from a price point of view,” says Stolle. “With this technology, we can produce a mold in much less time than our competitors. [It] makes our customers heroes to their customers.”
Computers pervade every aspect of Stolle Technology’s business. The company’s six programmers use an Intranet to communicate with the mold-making machines. Two robots on platforms carefully extricate the finished molds. Complex, competitive bids, estimates and work orders are all transmitted as e-mail attachments. The marketing department scours the Internet for potential clients and e-mails customized sales pitches with a link to the company Web site (stolletech.net). Customers can check on the progress of their orders by e-mailing company contacts. Barbara Stolle says her company is working on a collaborative Web site where its designers will soon be able to work in tandem with a client’s design team to expedite projects.
Yet utter dependence on technology has risks. Every minute of downtime is an attack on the Stolles’ bottom line, which makes strong vendor support critical to their success. So far, Manfred says, that support has been “absolutely phenomenal.” If a machine is ailing, the manufacturer sends a technician to the plant within 24 hours.
The technology also makes the business capital-intensive. “This is the most expensive way to make a living,” says Manfred. The Stolles needed money upfront. They relied on personal savings and a U.S. Small Business Administration-guaranteed loan to start the business in a small shop five years ago. They started with no employees–just themselves. Today Barbara Stolle, a former Sara Lee executive, manages all of the company’s financial and human resources. Manfred supervises shop operations, deals with clients and was the company’s only salesman until it hired a sales manager last year.
Like many business owners, the Stolles lose sleep over cash flow. They need to make lease payments and payroll and pay sky-high electric bills. Their main problem is late payment. “The automotive-component companies are the worst when it comes to paying on time,” says Stolle. “Sometimes we don’t get paid for eight months after the mold is approved.”
Because they couldn’t afford to finance their slow-paying customers, the Stolles went online seeking help. They connected with GE Capital Small Business Finance Corp., which refinanced their equipment leases, saving them $60,000 a year in interest payments. The $5,000 a month they saved enabled them to lease another $190,000 machine just last week. “The key for a small-business owner is to look for financing that matches the expected life of their assets,” says Jerry Sullivan, executive vice president of GE Capital Small Business Finance Group in St. Louis.
It’s certainly made all the difference to Manfred Stolle. These big, expensive boxes are what have allowed him to join a small group of skilled tool-and-die makers who’ve gone completely high tech. At 17, he became an apprentice at a small mold-making company in Bremen, Germany. In those days, mold makers were patient craftsmen, willing to devote hundreds or thousands of hours to making a single mold by hand. He learned about the mold-making machines by attending industry trade shows and reading trade journals. Today, at the age of 41, he relies on his hands to sign contracts, not make plastic molds.
