One day a well-known Healthcare company presented a packaging project that could be adapted to run in a tape and reel format. Tek Pak and owner Tony Beyer, who still holds some of the original patents on tape and reel design and production, asked what is the timeline? The customer explained that major decisions and contract awarding were in fact happening in the next 10 days. Not to be put off by an almost impossible time-line, the team jumped at the opportunity. All teams were put on stat alert. Design engineers worked to create, design and get customer drawings approved within the first couple of days. Next, the tooling team took over. The computer coding for the CNC machines were created and over a week-end the first tape and reel tools were built. Material for the tape for the first tool testing was pulled from Tek Pak’s supplies of extruded tape. By Monday, the first prototypes came off the tape and reel production line. The samples were tested by Tek Pak’s Quality Control team and met the healthcare company’s parameters.
Over the next week, additional tools were built and fitted to dedicated tape and reel machines. Tek Pak was awarded a contract with this major healthcare company. As time went on and the demand for this product continued to grow, Tek Pak engineers took it upon themselves without direction from the customer to design what is often referred to as “a better mouse trap”. This new approach increased by five times the volume of production while maintaining an exceptionally high level of quality. It is Tek Pak’s loyalty and dedication to continuous improvement that has earned us a highly respected reputation in the thin thermoplastics arena.
