Flambeau’s Packaging Division, which specializes in molded tool cases and organizers for industrial and consumer applications, has announced the launch of their Makita Cases Program.
As part of the arrangement, Flambeau is producing Makita plastic case assemblies at their Ramsgate, Kent, England facility, where they are now ramped up to full capacity.
Flambeau says they and Makita are:
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collaborating on the production of plastic case assemblies for Makita power tools such as planers, drills, grinders, and saws.
The company says they invested in 7 new injection molding presses and an enhanced material handling system. They also invested in upgrades for several of the plant’s existing injection molding presses, which were moved to accommodate the new production setup.
Flambeau says:
It is a sign that proven and efficient automated cells encourage the return of product and component manufacturing to the United Kingdom.
It is unclear whether Makita is coming out with a new modular tool case system, or if the UK-made cases will simply be blow molded tool cases of the kind commonly bundled with tool kits. Either way, this investment is interesting news to me.
Digging deeper, Flambeau issued an earlier announcement, in mid-2021, about “winning a substantial contract to manufacture plastic case assemblies for Makita.”
We asked Flambeau for more information, but they have not yet responded.
notinuse
Are they making any yo-yos (Duncan)? 🙂
Stuart
At that plant? Probably not. But as you clearly are aware, Flambeau owns the Duncan yo-yo brand. =) I first learned this earlier today.
notinuse
Yep, I love me some Duncan’s. 🙂
fred
All part of the Nordic Group:
https://www.flambeau.com/nordic-group/
I have some of their ZeRust boxes – bought from Bass Pro Shops. They seem to work – but it’s hard to prove it. I keep lures in them – and it’s also hard to know if the Zerust vapors have any impact on the attractiveness of the lures on the fish – but probably not.
I haven’t tried them for toolboxes:
https://www.flambeaucases.com/zerust-tool-boxes
Robert
Southeast England doesn’t seem a location where labor costs would make production of a relatively low tech product profitable. Is there a twist with these such as from some recycled plastics material?
jst
“It is a sign that proven and efficient automated cells encourage the return of product and component manufacturing to the United Kingdom.”
That means they are using robots to automate parts of the assembly line that would have been done by labor hence minimizing the impact of high labor costs
MPUK
There’s loads of PE waste from the panels plant in Eyethorne and other interesting solutions just around the corner from them. Anyway,
john
“labor”
Pablo
Our company actually make our injected molded items here in the US. I don’t think there are as much cost savings as people think offshoring. A lot of business people just assume everything can be manufactured cheaper in Asia without doing the analysis.
TomD
Especially as shipping rates have skyrocketed it’s often cheaper in the long run to run the factories locally.
Even Walmart trash cans have been made in the USA for almost a decade.
Munklepunk
Makita has some of the best tool cases. I’m not talking about the makpak. They are not blow molded. If they start blow molding them it will be a bummer.
bj
I have some Flambeau organizers from the 90’s that are still holding up.
I wonder if Plano molding company was ever in consideration. At one point, they seem to own the fishing tackle box world, and even made some killer plastic tool boxes (late 80’s) with locking/sliding trays.
fred
I have several old tackle boxes from both Plano and Old Pal. They have held up well considering some are 60+ years old. I can’t say that for the first (steel) tackle box that I owned as a kid – and was fine until I started using it for saltwater fishing.
In the plumbing business that I was a partner in – we had several backflow test-kits from Midwest Instruments. Midwest use Plano boxes (modified #6134) to package their test sets. So’ it would seem that Plano is open to contracting with others for tool cases.
Franck B.
Plano also already make a limited line of trunks and tactical storage boxes which are good quality and reasonably priced (I too seem to recall receiving a UV leak detection kit packaged in a Plano box). I have a lot of their parts organizes, but I think they didn’t hold up as well as 3M storage boxes. I think 3M gave up on that market though, which is too bad because I found their living hinge latches to be superior to a lot of other self-latching u-hook.
But Plano works with a lot of different materials to fit the application, and the nicer boxes are good quality.
JoeM
Not exactly surprising… Flambeau has done all sorts of plastic cases for decades, and they were always highly sought after. They used to do fishing gear, and tackle boxes. They had this infinite divider system that has since been adopted for a great many parts box makers out there. Plus they decided to go over the top with the Infinity Tackle Box (now a Tool box you can buy direct from them.) that in a lot of ways was a predecessor to all the modern stacking tool boxes we have now.
It came with a main body top, and you could link drawer slides (with their drawers) to the bottom via a clip that just popped down and locked it on. There was one on each corner, and each of those drawer slide attachments had one of their own. So, you could get as many as you wanted, and make one giant stack. Flambeau has always been pretty innovative with their product designs, so hearing that a tool company like Makita is going direct to the source for manufacturing these things, I don’t see how this could be bad. Of course, now I miss my old tackle boxes… not the fishing, the lures, or anything in it, but it sure would be nice to have for parts storage.
Maybe I’ll contact Flambeau and try to get the tool box version? They can customize it now! I do like it!