Keolyn operated very large injection molding equipment to make products for the food processing industry.  For example, hamburger forming machines for a Chicago-based group called Hollymatic. 

“We used to make tremendous amounts of heavy-wall products for them,” Glatt remembers.  “We also molded a 48-pound structural foam product for Coca Cola.  We had some very large machines running that made everything from plastics pallets to dish racks.  My uncle Jack E. Glatt  and his brother Ed Glatt sold the business in 1988, leaving me to stay under contract for two years as chief of engineering and sales.” 

Glatt says no matter where he worked over the years, every company had a room of what he terms “leftovers,” or, in other words, lots of difficult-to-handle materials.   

“When I opened GAIM Engineering in 1990 I knew what my material of choice would be – engineering grade polymers,” he said.  “I knew everybody would be clamoring for commodity materials which are extremely volatile in pricing and difficult to secure.” 

Because they are traded on the open market, and everybody wants low-cost products, manufacturers seek out the low-cost materials to produce them, Glatt explains.  The low-cost material prices then naturally escalate, and they end up not being so low in cost after all.   
        (Pictured above, GAIM's First Molding
                      Room. One of Two.)

“You can buy engineering grade materials for less cost than commodity materials,” Glatt states.  “Thus, we give our customers a quality product for a better price.  It’s not rocket science.” 

GAIM Engineering manufactures mostly heavy-wall, durable goods.  The company’s slogan is “High Performance Plastic Products from Second Generation Polymers.” 

Glatt lists a wide range of items his company manufactures, including those for automotive, transit fare systems (components for turnstiles and card reader machines that put money onto fare transit debit cards), wireless transmission of data with low profile antennas for GPS and tracking for construction using heavy earth-moving equipment found on large earth movers for dam building and roads.  GAIM also manufactures juvenile furniture frames and legs, pump components, professional decorating tools, electronic housings, consumer products for the home improvement industry, pest control components (which happen to be made out of ground up headlights from automobiles), toys (mainly doll furniture), and a line of products for the moldmaking industry and the plastics processing industry. (Pictured a the right, a bassinet leg mold, low cost production tooling, US built locally.)

“We do have a smattering of Polypropylene and High Density Polyethylene moldings, but that is not our core business,” Glatt adds.  “Polyesters are not a material of choice due to the world demand adding pressure to supply and price.” 

The Win-Win Advantages of Recycling 

This ecologically-minded company does not mold styrene because it will not create a durable product. 

“We choose ABS due to less demand and a mindset that it’s expensive and you have to dry it," Glatt says. "Make a better product with a better material and deepen your relationship with your clients.” 

In fact, GAIM’s website, www.gaimengineering.com, dedicates an entire page to the discussion of plastics recycling and why it benefits not only the environment, but also the customer and GAIM itself.  The argument for using reusable scrap polymers is a strong one, though Glatt will admit recycled materials aren’t suitable for every application.  However, he says many more manufacturers could utilize recycled plastics than those that currently do.  China is buying an extensive amount of scrap plastics – and metals, for example. 

“They’re taking advantage of an opportunity to purchase our scrap and sell it right back to us in the form of new products,” says Glatt.  “The current situation is that our global competition is buying resins, reformulating these materials and molding consumer goods as well as high ticket items.  We’re buying back our scrap in the form of consumer goods large and small, which might contain heavy metals for coloring that lack watchful eyes off-shore, and then mass recalls occur here due to significant findings.” 

“We’re not brokers,” he asserts.  “Whatever we buy in scrap we use ourselves.  We don’t raise prices, either.  Price concessions and discounts are the norm because reverse auctions found on the Internet or intra-state competition between molding companies due to client consolidation of vendors makes it possible.” 

Electronically, GAIM sends out fax campaigns to brokers stating that the company is looking for specific materials with particular properties that exist within its formulation, he explains.  The brokers, he says, prefer to sell their scrap right here in the U.S. because they can turn their inventory more quickly.  By the time they get a container filled up they can sell it and be assured of a timely payment. 

“You could say that under a microscope, GAIM Engineering is a compounder,” says Glatt.  “We leave the recycled materials in our inventory in a dry blend formula.  What we do is blend for the event that we are molding for.  We do not co-mingle materials, however.  Instead, we fortify a base resin with impact modifiers, fillers, colors, blow and ship agents.” 

“We’re market driven regarding color, packaging requirements and international standards because we ship globally,” he adds.  GAIM is accumulating data for its work in order to become ISO 9002 and TS 16949 (automotive standard) certified, and is being schooled by Triton College and T.Q.S. in Crystal Lake, IL. 

“Our intent was to understand the standards and become a self audited and reviewed company (self regulated without the aid of outside services or sub-contractors),” explains Glatt.   

Additional products molded by GAIM include internal machine components for the printing industry, exterior decking mechanical clamping components and pill crusher/splitter/storage products.  Glatt says his company not only manufactures products created off the platform of scrap for clients’ products, but GAIM also uses it for its own proprietary products as well. 

“We are a contract injection molding company laced with some captive work,” he says.  The company’s first product was a solid thermoplastic locating ring, known to the plastics industry as The Locator. 

“Everybody made them out of steel and molders were shorting out heater bands, smashing molds, causing mistakes and basically wrecking machinery,” he says.  “With The Locator everybody wins.  There are no more problems with a plastic ring.  The worst that can happen is the ring might melt a little bit and that’s okay.  It’s not as costly to deal with as the steel locating rings were.” 

With only 14 employees, it becomes clear to most that GAIM Engineering is no ordinary small manufacturer.  Glatt and his crew have a hand in several projects at any given time, whether proprietary or not – and the company also finds time and funding to purchase the latest in processing technology and radio advertising time.  Glatt himself contracts and composes the ad copy, saving on agency commissions.  In addition, Glatt participates in such trade shows as the National Hardware Show, the International Housewares Show, the Flower & Garden Show, the Illinois Recycling Association Conference & Expo, the Society of Plastics Engineers’ local chapter events and various plastics expos.   

“As for sourcing off-shore, we shy away for many reasons,” says Skip Glatt, president and CEO of GAIM Engineering. “The strength of our company is in business relationships with our vendors. We might pay a little more, but all we lose is money. If new events were tooled off-shore a loss of a product due to its being copied and mass marketed by foreign competitors is a much bigger loss. 

“Local tool rooms are good at what they do and that is unique to them,” he continues. “Shop selection is key. Tool builders that build it our way (‘we’ being the mold engineers) are an asset, saving dollars, lead time and maximizing our purchasing dollar.” 

Glatt is an outspoken advocate of maintaining a strong manufacturing base in the U.S. His company, founded in 1990, serves a niche market that not only helps cut costs for both himself and his customers, but also helps environmentally. GAIM Engineering only manufactures recyclable polymers using compound injection. This strategy, combined with the latest in technology and lights out operations, has kept GAIM customers from seeking off-shore services. But that’s not the whole story.  (Pictured at the right is GAIM's lights out method on a 2MM cycled 55 ton molder that doesn't stop.)

“Our relationships with our clients include the understanding that we mold product whether we have an order or not,” says Glatt. “Most of the time we don’t have any orders at all. We own the inventory and our customers will call us up and say, ‘Hey, can we get ‘X’ number of units?’ We sell the existing inventory and mold more immediately with, again, a large overrun at the end to build our stock to an average order point for that project. We are after loyalty, not just customer satisfaction.”  

GAIM is a full-service processor in other ways, too. 

“We’ll do the packaging, decorating, etc. right here in our shop,” Glatt explains. “The client then sells from our shop floor direct to the distribution centers, cutting down on logistics and the costs that go with it. Handling orders for direct shipment requires credit card processing, traffic control, quick response to market needs that could be mass merchant, hardware, catalog or Internet sales. Each market, client and order is unique and all valued equally. Without the client, there is no need to exist. Ethics drives our internal engine.” 

GAIM funds tooling for exclusive clients, Glatt explains, allowing them to secure long-term relationships with customers and provide a solid foundation on which to begin an “event” or project. It also enables the client to free up funds for marketing and promotions that get the product to market faster and, in turn, keeps GAIM busy, he says.  

There are no fees for set-up, mold analysis, design, materials evaluation or mold testing. In addition, Glatt offers advantageous five-year fixed pricing that only includes materials and an attractive shop rate component. 

“Leave the price alone, and learn to do it better and more efficiently,” he says. “We have the latest technology here. It’s all automated: the blending and coloring, labeling, feeding the machine, putting products on a conveyor belt and more, helping us save on production costs.”  

A new project GAIM has taken on is taking advantage of the savings. The product? A pitcher with a compartment for ice that helps keep the beverage cold and also will identify its contents. 

“It’s going to be about a $90,000 tooling program, including part design, two molds and mold construction,” Glatt says. “It will be a standard 60-oz container molded from recycled, reprocessed and virgin materials pending market requirements. It will be produced for low-end private label usage and also as a high-end product with NSF approval (National Sanitation Foundation). That mold, in theory, could be made off-shore, but we won’t do that. It’ll be manufactured from stainless steel and built to run economically by a local mold making source.  

“We’ll produce 64 parts an hour, finished and packaged,” continues Glatt. “The pitchers will then be put in stock, palletized, labeled with bar-code labels; first in, first out inventory. We’re cautious, of course. We’re not going to make a ton of product up front in the beginning.”

Glatt’s company currently has 15 molding machines, the two biggest are 330-ton capacity models.  Four of them are 275-ton sized and the rest smaller and equipped with ten robot take out units. The company utilizes only hydraulic machines at this time, but Glatt is keeping an eye on the new electric models that are starting to mature and meet the plasticizing needs of the Compound Injection molding process. (Pictured at the right is two of GAIM's three mixing stations.)

“Our molding machines are compounding instruments as well as salad shooters,” he says. “We have machinery separate from the molding machines that do all of the premixing and blending of the scrap polymers. These blenders can take as many as six different products and dry blend them and then they are taken by surge bins to the various drier stands for the molding machines for processing.” 

The scrap polymers are in granulated flake form and free flow shredded by an automated system, Glatt says, and gravity pulls the materials to the screw which does the compounding in the molding machine, liquefies the materials and then shoots it into the closed mold. The specifics of the screw, blends and methods are proprietary information and it’s quite scientific, though Glatt downplays that fact. 

“We’re a bakery,” he says. And when asked how some of the blends come into being, he answers, “Does a bakery tell everyone how it makes its cookies?” 

Glatt will divulge this much: high end products are made from intake manifolds of engines and other similar high-grade product, while low end products are typically made from post-consumer food packaging scrap. GAIM also uses some pharmaceutical scrap. 

For quality control purposes, only three people, one of whom is Glatt, are involved in blending plastics for projects at GAIM. However it’s done, customers seem to appreciate what goes into the process. 

“We’re 9% over last year in sales,” says Glatt. “We were around $1.8 million prior to 9/11, then we dropped a bit to $1.2 million in 2002 and have adjusted to the market. The market is smaller and so are our costs across the board. Reductions in expense and payroll leave us more to invest in other areas.” 

One way Glatt is building up his company is by designing and manufacturing proprietary products that are continually gaining in popularity. The TPR mentioned one such product in Part one of this feature: The Locator, which is a plastic locating ring used by mold makers and plastics processors. It replaces costly steel locator rings found on all injection molds and they can be purchased from stocking distributors along with other products such as the GAIM-TOI, a safety strap for molds, and the GAIM-BAR kits that protect tie rods and cylinder rods. Another product Glatt developed that is marketed to consumers is the handy Totasak. 

The Totasak is an ergonomically-designed device made from, of course, 100% recycled polymers that is made to loop through several bag handles at once to help individuals carry packages more safely and comfortably. Unbelievable but true, the Totasak can manage up to 1,400 pounds. Glatt’s marketing pitch: “Totasak can carry more than you can.” It is also promoted globally as the “One Trip Wonder!”

Totasak is sold online at www.totasak.com for consumers, and is also available to retailers, fund raising organizations, stocking distributors, aging communities, exporters, and potential agents. Product information is found at www.gaimway.com. It has been a tremendous success because Glatt also promotes the product at trade shows and on WGN Radio, a superstation talk-radio format that is heard nationally and based in Chicago. FM talk radio producers often contact GAIM for free giveaways for listeners in exchange for radio time during which GAIM can promote recycling and its products to listeners outside of Illinois. (Pictured at the left is The Totasak... developed by GAIM Engineering.)

Glatt is not shy about promoting his business. Live television newscasts have been conducted right from his shop floor, Chicago’s News Radio 78 has featured GAIM on its Made In Chicago segment during which he discussed recycling and his company has been featured in several trade and business publications.

One can also hear several 60-second spots on WGN Radio, for instance. GAIM runs three spots a night and the copy is changed seasonally. 

“We mention certain special customers in the spots,” says Glatt. “We don’t give them baseball tickets; we don’t send out Christmas presents – we gift all year long to our best customers by giving them some PR in our radio advertising.” 

Capitalizing on Government Grants 

How does a company like GAIM Engineering get a handle on automation, create new products, market itself on radio and serve customers globally without sacrificing anything to foreign competitors? 

“In 2001 we did a lot of capitalization and it all works to make our company a success,” he says.  

“The biggest thing global competition has is government support,” continues Glatt. “That’s where we [GAIM] excel. I’ve gotten grants. I’ve saved myself some trips to Europe using video conferencing. I’ve gone through government trade offices in IL to set up business meetings in the U.S., Poland, Germany and Canada. BuyUSA.com – we’re involved in that. We try to get involved in everything and utilize government assistance programs. It’s not an overnight success; it takes some work and time, but the thing is that it works.” 

It all began when Glatt attended the National Plastics Exposition (NPE) at Chicago’s McCormick Place in 2000. He attended a special program presented by the Illinois Department of Commerce & Community Affairs (DCCA), now called the Illinois Department of Commerce & Economic Opportunity, or DCEO. The program talked about state funding available for businesses. 

“I picked up a folder there, made application, and was awarded my first state grant in the fall of 2000,” Glatt says. “That enabled me to procure some brand new equipment and free up our cash to purchase tooling for clients. My second grant was from the same group and was for about $116,000, which was spent on automation. The third grant I was awarded was about $245,000, which bought robotics, end-of-arm tooling, two drying machines and a large molding machine. 

These particular grants were in a matching format, he explains. If a company stays in business and does what it says it will with the funding, in a few short years the equipment is free and clear of the state and becomes the property of the company pending audits and business ethics verification. 

 “We got rid of our old machines,” Glatt continues. “Now everything is digital (computerized). The more we mold products, the better we get at it and that supports our not having to implement a price increase. We’ve learned from mistakes, from keeping good documentation and by employing the technology we have – It all adds up to more efficient operations and cost savings for our customers.”

GAIM has won four grants total, the latest being an education grant. Glatt is using it to earn the ISO 9002/TS 16949 certification mentioned in Part I of this article. He says it was given through the State of Illinois’ Employer Training and Investment Program and is worth $10,000. 

“People don’t study the competition,” Glatt says. “What are off-shore competitors doing that we aren’t doing? Governments offshore, such as in China, support manufacturing, but it doesn’t happen here. Here, a business owner invests in one machine, works like crazy till he finally turns a profit so he can purchase another machine and by then his competition has ten machines – and they are all better than what he’s got."

“What I’m saying is if there is government help out there, use it,” he states. 

The grants have led to other, underlying benefits besides just the money, Glatt points out. To him, they have allowed his company to show people new products and new ways of making them and it gets them thinking. 

Often, GAIM offers tours to organizations such as the Illinois Recycling Association, the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) and S.C.A.R.C.E., which stands for School and Community Assistance for Recycling and Compost Education, a program youths and teachers who want to learn more about recycling and hazardous waste prevention. Even Wood Dale Junior High School has taken advantage of the tours and students leave fascinated. 

Glatt is already planning his next move, and not surprisingly, may apply for a fifth grant. One thing is for sure: he’s got a market niche that works for everybody involved and he’s excited about it. 

“I think everything today has some measure of recycled content,” he comments. “That’s not going to sell the product. It’s value at a great price that sells. Recycled content helps us offer that without having to farm the work overseas. Robotically run, lights out manufacturing is also key.” 

For more information on GAIM Engineering, visit its website at www.gaimengineering.com, or call Skip Glatt at 630-350-9500. Outside Illinois, call toll-free 877-GAIMENG.