Every case study below comes from the same source: 33 years of operational leadership inside PRe Plastics, a custom injection molder in Northern California — not client engagements. They are presented here because the operational challenges they document are exactly the kinds of problems Miller Fractional Leadership exists to help injection molding companies solve. No aggregated client data. What you see here is what was actually built, decided, and delivered.
Client case studies will be added as engagements are completed.
Case Study 1
How a $7.5M Injection Molder Rebuilt Itself Around Automotive
In 2019, PRe Plastics lost its largest customer overnight. Within months, the company had committed to its first-ever automotive program — a strategically critical win that required capabilities PRe did not yet fully have: precision inspection equipment, Tier 1 quality documentation, the ability to run molds far larger and heavier than anything in the existing toolroom, and an unbreakable delivery record across a three-tier supply chain.
What followed was five years of sustained operational performance through conditions that tested every dimension of the business: a compressed tooling timeline that required a same-night flight to China, a COVID-era production launch with no disruptions, a major ERP implementation, a second vehicle model award, and ultimately a $3 million facility expansion completed in four months.
Revenue doubled in two years — from $7.5 million in 2020 to $15 million in 2022 — before the largest expansion had produced a single part. One management position was added across the entire period of growth.
Case Study 2
Compressing an Impossible Tooling Timeline to Save a Production Launch
The end customer ran two months late on part designs. The production launch date was fixed. The toolshop's standard lead time was 16 weeks. Nine weeks remained — and Chinese New Year created a second hard deadline: the molds had to be built, trialed, and shipped out of China before the holiday shutdown or the launch would be missed.
At 3:00 in the afternoon, when the situation became clear, Brian Miller booked a flight to China that night. The following day he built a day-by-day schedule with the toolshop on the floor. Five days of all-night mold trials in late December. A structured plan separating critical work from deferrable cosmetic finishing. The tools shipped before Chinese New Year. The end customer overnighted them to California. First production parts were delivered on time.
