profile Left: The Bhar, Inc. management team includes Richard Kelly, Jeremy Buechner, Melissa Smith and Jeff Baker.
difficult one. “We already had come through two tough years, making hard decisions to position the company in a way that allowed it to thrive,” said Kelly. “There wasn’t much of a transition to be made when the ownership change was announced.”
This year the future is looking bright, but in 2009, the company’s sales had decreased 50 percent due to the economic downturn. “Bhar was in survival mode,” Kelly said. “We quickly made many tough decisions in an effort to right-size the company, minimize the losses and stop the negative cash flow.”
Understanding the market challenges Ninety percent of Bhar’s injection molding business is in the automotive industry, both as a Tier 1 and Tier 2 supplier for the automotive and heavy truck markets. The company produces a variety of cosmetic and non-cosmetic parts found on vehicles manufactured by Honda, Nissan, Toyota, Subaru, General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, among others. These parts include automotive headlamp housings and lenses, door panel components, wheel liners, engine covers, sound management components and HVAC shielding. Bhar’s capabilities include press capacity from 200 to 3,000 tons, and the facility is equipped with two cranes. Robotic part picking is available on most presses, and the company produces approximately 10 million parts each year.
Bhar currently has 127 employees and an additional 23 contract employees in its temporary-to-hire program. Roughly 30 percent of molded parts require secondary assembly, including heat sealing and sonic welding. The company recently has purchased and installed three new 385T electric molding cells to manufacture a product line for a new customer. This equipment purchase expands Bhar’s capabilities outside of the current product focus and provides for further growth opportunities. Bhar is TS16949-certified, putting the company in a select group of certified companies across North America. The TS process includes many levels of training and quality confirmation, and quality of product and consistency of process are a continual focus at Bhar. “The key to Bhar’s success in meeting quality standards is that the production department is ultimately responsible for and takes ownership of the quality of the parts produced,” explained Kelly. “The role of the quality department is to establish and clearly communicate the quality criteria, then perform audits based on that criteria. Maintaining a clear line of responsibility and communication between the production department and the department has been a challenge that has been met through non-stop focus by the leaders of those departments.”
Driving its own recovery This year the future is looking bright, but in 2009, the company’s sales had decreased 50 percent due to the economic downturn.
“In 2009, the entire world was focused on the bankruptcy of a major automotive OEM,” explained Melissa Smith, president. “We, of course, were very concerned because the OEM was our primary customer. Once the company went into Chapter 11, we knew all production would be stopped, so we quickly sat down and started looking at what would happen when our sales went away.” “Bhar was in survival mode,” Kelly said. “We quickly made many tough decisions in an effort to right-size the company, minimize the losses and stop the negative cash flow.” First up was a reduction in overhead and labor costs. Bhar reduced its inventory significantly, eliminated its offsite warehousing and began evaluating every purchase order. “We looked at every dime we were spending, going over each account to try to reduce our variable costs. We were small enough that we could react quickly,” Kelly explained, “but that didn’t make the decisions any easier.” The hardest decisions involved labor changes. “We had good people and good friends that we had to let go because we were no longer a $20 million sales company,” said Kelly. “That was the most difficult thing, but it was necessary. Within a couple of months of the downturn in 2009, the management team knew we had to do something to survive. Bhar, Inc. couldn’t continue losing money.” Although it was a difficult time for Bhar, the recession started a string of positive events for the company, thanks primarily to the development of a market strategy that is leading the company to its most profitable year yet. “When sales decrease by 50 percent, it frees up quite a bit of press capacity,” laughed Kelly. “Our strategy was to stay positive, cut costs, implement a sales and marketing plan and be there when the economy and page 12 u the automotive industry rebounded.”
www.plasticsbusinessmag.com | 11