2019 Leadtime Leader Winner Honored at Amerimold

Over the past few years, I have heard through the grapevine that those shops who have taken the Leadtime Leader title say they’ve entered an elite club … “like The Oscars or better yet The Masters,” one past winner told me.

How cool to think of this annual Award in that regard. And it certainly felt that way yesterday as our 2018 and newly-crowned 2019 Leadtime Leader Winners shared the spotlight for a few short but emotional minutes.

Before announcing the winner, I called Dave LaGrow, president of 2018 Leadtime Leader Winner Maximum Mold Group, to the mic to say a few words about what the Award has done for his team over the past year, encourage all shops to enter next year's competition, and then present the Award plaque to Ron Novel, president of X-Cell Tool & Mold, as I made the official announcement. It really felt like a  "passing of the torch" that added to that elite club feeling. 

This year the competition for the title was fierce, requiring a second round of review by our anonymous panel of OEM, molder and consultant judges.  Each finalist was scored on performance in leadtime and deliveries, investment in technology, innovation in business strategy, manufacturing efficiency, commitment to workforce training and development, industry involvement and customer satisfaction. It was a very close race among the scores of the top three, but X-Cell reigned supreme in the end.

President Ron Novel took to the stage to accept the Award for his team, acknowledging that it is X-Cell’s “Nothing is fast enough, clean enough or good enough” mantra that continues to push this team to continuously improve. And that’s really what being a Leadtime Leader is all about.

With that mantra in mind, X-Cell has used its strategies and technologies to increase work per machine hour, machine hours and unattended machine hours, basically producing more product in the same delivery time frame. 

On a personal note,  X-Cell’s Operations Manager Brian Dippel gave me first shop tour back in 1997 at a company he used to work for, and I am honored to now be giving the company he works for now our Leadtime Leader Award.

These awards, sponsored by  MoldMaking Technologyand Progressive Components, have been honoring outstanding moldmakers who best demonstrate overall innovation, efficiency, quality and commitment for the past 16 years. 

Click to enter your shop into our 2020 Leadtime Leader Awards Competition.