Women in Manufacturing group tours Yakima businesses

Business Reporter

When employees and executives of Washington manufacturing companies toured the Kwik Lok facility in Yakima, their comments weren’t just about the innovative products designed and assembled there.

Members of the state’s Women in Manufacturing chapter also took note of the facility’s organization, cleanliness and opportunities for employee feedback as they visited Aug. 11.

And as Rob Asbury, senior director of global production, led Women in Manufacturing members through Kwik Lok’s extrusion building, they were impressed by small details of the plastic sheet-making process.

Pellets of materials such as high impact polystyrene (“HIPS”) and polypropylene are heated to 450 degrees, Asbury said. Dye is added to produce one of nine colors, and the materials are rolled through an assembly line to make sheets of plastic, which are rolled up and cool for at least 48 hours in the extrusion building.

Amid huge rolls of different colored plastic, chapter members were impressed by the several dozen bins of “regrind” — plastic bits that are cut off when the grocery and produce bag locks are made in the adjacent production building.

The regrind bits are fed into the plastic sheet-making machines to mix with new material, Asbury said. About 30% regrind is the “sweet spot” to prevent the new plastic from getting too brittle.

“I’m very impressed that you have virtually a zero percent scrap rate … you don’t waste a pellet,” a tour group member told Asbury.

The group also was impressed by the new products Kwik Lok has produced to accommodate client needs and consumer trends, such as incorporating post-consumer recycled materials into their products.

The visitors were impressed by the volume of production at Kwik Lok’s Yakima facility, which is one of six factories worldwide.

Kimberly Paxton-Hagner, one of three sisters who own and oversee the third-generation family business, said 15 million locks a day and 30 billion locks a year are produced in Yakima.

“When you see these (Kwik Lok clips) on bread bags, you’re not thinking of that volume. It’s a huge business,” Paxton-Hagner said.

Washington’s Women in Manufacturing chapter is part of a national and global trade association supporting women who have chosen a career in the manufacturing industry.

The national organization has more than 20,000 individual members representing more than 3,000 manufacturing companies, the group’s website states, with membership open to every job function, from the production floor to company leadership.

The Washington chapter’s leadership team includes Kwik Lok’s Makayla Euteneier-Asbury and Kaitlin Bealer, both from the Yakima company’s customer service department.

Jessica Kinman, the group’s chair and membership director in Washington, said the Yakima Valley tour was a chance to see how companies such as Kwik Lok and Borton Fruit, where the group toured Saturday afternoon, use automation and modern technology in their production lines.

They also visited the Yakima Valley Vintners Teaching Winery and Vineyard in Yakima on Friday afternoon, following the Kwik Lok tour, and the Mighty Tieton mini-manufacturing hub on Saturday morning.

Two of the three Kwik Lok owners, Stephanie Jackson and Paxton-Hagner, were part of Friday’s tour, along with Kwik Lok CEO Don Carrell.

Carrell explained that his company makes much more than bags and clips for baked goods and produce.

“We also make the machines that apply those, and the machines that make them,” he said. “I look at Kwik Lok as an engineering company with a lot of innovation.”

Engineer Keith Kubishta and chemist Viktoria Pakhnyuk explained how in-store machines are built to last and how starch-based materials are being incorporated into the company’s Eco-Lok and Fiber-Lok products.

“Our machines are bulletproof,” Kubishta said. “We like to go into a facility and not have to replace any parts on them for at least two years.”

Pakhnyuk referred to the U.S. Plastics Pact, which “will have a really big impact on us” as it requires 100% of plastic packaging to be reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025.

In the assembly department, Jose Castellanos showcased different products from the hand-operated bagging machines for “mom and pop” grocery stores to large, durable machines that handle the bagging of potatoes and onions.

As the tour concluded, Jackson and Paxton-Hagner discussed how they and their sister, Melissa Steiner, took over the company in 2015 after their father, Jerre Paxton, died. The business was established by the sisters’ grandfather, Floyd Paxton, in the 1950s.

One aspect the three sisters have stressed is feedback from employee steering committees as the company uses new practices and production methods. The Yakima facility has 115 to 120 employees, and Kwik Lok employs roughly 350 workers worldwide.

With facilities in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Ireland and Japan, Kwik Lok leaders must be sure their production process and management style works for different cultures and worker backgrounds, Jackson said.

“We can have the best intentions on so many things, but what are their actual impact?” she added. “Employee steering committees have helped with that.”

Contact Joel Donofrio at [email protected].

Business Reporter

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