Company:

The Howard Company, a highly respected point-of-purchase display manufacturer

Objective:

Produce a pair of promotional toy kiosks for Burger King^® restaurants on a limited budget and within an accelerated timeframe.

Situation:

The unique designs of the permanent floor and counter merchandisers incorporated 10 parts to be thermoformed and seven parts to be flat sheet fabricated by General Plastics. Also included for the finished product were elements provided by outside suppliers. The specific methods to assemble and distribute the units had not been finalized when this challenging project was first presented to General Plastics.

Solution:

Working closely with the design group at The Howard Company, the General Plastics team uncovered during the prototyping process several opportunities to dramatically reduce production costs. This included the use of one set of tooling to thermoform both units. In addition, General Plastics utilized to the customer’s advantage its significant purchasing power in cost-effectively acquiring raw materials.
General Plastics seamlessly integrated the assembly of all of the many components, including customer provided metal supports, wood bases and paper graphics. The various parts of the approximately 8000 units were collated, assembled, packaged and drop shipped directly from General Plastics to the individual restaurants. Careful planning maximized the ease of final assembly on site.

Bottom Line:

General Plastics’ total turnkey approach, from design assistance to unit assembly, guaranteed that all sensitive time and budgetary project demands were met while ensuring that each element fit and functioned as originally intended by the designers.

In recognition of this notable collaborative achievement, General Plastics won the Society of Plastic Engineers’ Parts Competition in Cut Sheet for Point-Of-Purchase.