CLEVELAND, OH—November 6, 2017— Hatch Stamping Company, Chelsea, MI, has received the 2017 Plex Systems Innovation and Technology Award, as part of the Precision Metalforming Association’s (PMA) Awards of Excellence in Metalforming.  Founded in 1952, the company is a world leader in highly engineered metal stampings and assemblies for the automotive industry.

Hatch Stamping won the award for implementing cloud technology and an enterprise-resource-planning (ERP) system that drives continuous real-time data collection to effectively manage core business functions across its multi-facility organization.  The system also helps the company significantly reduce waste and variation.

Utilizing the system’s enhanced program-management tool allows Hatch Stamping to quickly review its more than 275 projects at a glance, understand where the company’s Gates timing is, hold teams accountable and ensure that customer requirements are met.  The ability for customers and suppliers to access and view project information has allowed Hatch Stamping to manage the increased project workload without the need to increase internal administrative staff, who in the past spent countless hours building out manual spreadsheets, redundant forms and task lists in attempts to manage supplier deliverables and customer requirements.

The company also holds its suppliers to its Gantt timelines and creates user accounts for them to manage the deliverables timely on the project gates the suppliers have with Hatch Stamping.

Customers now are confident that Hatch Stamping is on target to meet their timing deadlines.  The proof is in the data.  These engineering software tools are integrated with the ERP system to ensure efficient tracking of a project from launch to production, maintaining 100-percent within budget and on-time performance.

Hatch Stamping and its employees have experienced numerous benefits from implementing the ERP system, including the ability to see the current real-time status of customer program timing, to hyperlink to complete details of every program with a few clicks of the mouse, and to navigate to multilinked facilities.  In addition, a unified menu structure enables everyone to access what they need in the same fashion and all employees can access the system on their mobile and portable devices through Google Apps or iTunes. 

The Innovation and Technology Award is one of nine Awards of Excellence in Metalforming presented annually by PMA.  It recognizes a metalforming company that has implemented cloud technology to drive innovation from a product or business perspective, transform business operations or leveraged it in order to scale and grow from a size or product perspective in order to emerge as a leader in their industry.  The award is sponsored by Plex Systems, Inc., Troy, MI.

PMA is the full-service trade association representing the $137-billion metalforming industry of North America—the industry that creates precision metal products using stamping, fabricating, spinning, slide forming and roll forming technologies, and other value-added processes.  Its nearly 800 member companies also include suppliers of equipment, materials and services to the industry.  PMA leads innovative member companies toward superior competitiveness and profitability through advocacy, networking, statistics, the PMA Educational Foundation, FABTECH and METALFORM Mexico tradeshows, and MetalForming, Fabricating Product News and 3D Metal Printing magazines.