Case Studies

Tackling Ice Pix

How did a guitar pick maker in Hollywood, California find the perfect manufacturing solution in the hands of a manufacturer based in Raleigh, North Carolina? SourceAuthority.com helped bridge the 2500-mile gap between these two small companies, bringing them together and working alongside them to guarantee success.

Ice-Pix, the guitar pick manufacturer had developed a new innovative guitar pick but they had a problem. Production was underway but the process was lengthy and inefficient. Ice-Pix turned to SourceAuthority.com to assist them in finding a manufacturing company who could help them develop a solution to increase their output. "The SourceAuthority team gave me the impression that they completely understood what we wanted and were fully confident that they could meet our needs," said Ice-Pix. "SourceAuthority helped us find a team of engineers to design and prototype a production assembly device for our company to expedite the manufacturing of specialty guitar picks."

After submitting their Request for Quote criteria to SourceAuthority.com, Ice-Pix found the perfect manufacturing match in Tackle Design and industrial engineer Chuck Messer. Tackle Design, a company that had only been established for a year say they would not be in business if it were not for SourceAuthority. "Tackle Design would not have been established without SourceAuthority.com's help," claimed Chuck. "At the time, 70% of our business was coming from the service."

"Though Ice-Pix needed a quick solution to improve output", said Chuck, "they were not exactly sure what they needed." Working collaboratively, Tackle Design and Ice-Pix assessed and defined the project goals. Ultimately Tackle Design helped to develop a simple cost-effective solution to their problem. "The solution improved batch size from 80/hour to 400/hour with higher quality." This solution, although easy to use, would have cost Ice-Pix a substantial amount of money as according to Chuck. "Ice-Pix would have needed $30,000 worth of tooling to accomplish the job on their own." Tackle Design also provided instructional videos on how to use the manufacturing device and helped Ice-Pix through every step of the production process.

The improvement in output had Ice-Pix "singing" the praises of SourceAuthority.com, "SourceAuthority.com took our difficult problem and solved it for us. Ultimately, our turn around time on production increased twenty-fold with their help. Honestly, I could not be happier with the quality, efficiency and friendliness that we have found in the people at SourceAuthority.com." Tackle Design also plans to remain a long time supplier of SourceAuthority.com as they have received "five to six jobs within a seven to eight month period."

Ice-Pix, a west-coast guitar pick maker never considered that when they started looking for a manufacturer they would find their solution in the form of a small east-coast design company like Tackle Design. Fortunately, SourceAuthority.com is committed to finding the perfect solution to every manufacturing problem regardless of time or distance.

- Mohammed Helmy
Graduate student at University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

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