President’s Message: Understanding the State of the Rotomolding Industry

ARM President Rick Carlsen

Rather than regurgitating past information, I decided to put together a little chart to memorialize 2020:


Rotoplas 2020 is now Rotoplas 2021.  Same great location, same low price.

ARM made the decision to postpone Rotoplas 2020.  There’s too much uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 to continue with the initial plan.  Corporate and governmental travel restrictions coupled with the threat of a Fall resurgence all played into the decision.  The event has been rescheduled for the week of September 20, 2021 in Chicago, IL.

Virtual Fall Meeting

In place of Rotoplas 2020, ARM is hosting an online meeting September 21 – 25, 2020. The schedule is filling up quickly with lots of technical and shop floor rotomolding content. We are excited to bring the education you have come to expect from our in-person meetings to this online format this year. Sign up for the meeting here.

We will host videos for all exhibitors on the 2020 Online Meeting website. These videos will be published on our site the week of August 24 and meeting attendees can click to learn more about the companies and their products. During the Online Annual Meeting (the week of September 21), exhibitors will take part in private Zoom meetings with rotomolders/attendees. ARM staff will schedule and organize all of these meetings across 3 – 5 afternoons that week.

There is no charge for members attending the meeting. We know the current climate makes doing business difficult and as an association, we want to do everything we can to make your investment in ARM valuable. 

Industry SWOT Analysis

An emerging theme of recent meetings and presentations is Industry 4.0; the industrial revolution that leverages cyber-physical systems and the IoT to alert and direct activities based on real-time process information.  To better understand how our industry can keep pace during this latest revolution, we thought it was important to understand the state of the current industry.

To understand where rotomolding fits compared to general manufacturing, ARM is conducting a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis of the industry.  A SWOT focuses on both internal factors, strengths and weaknesses, and well as external factors, opportunities and threats, to highlight the current state.  Based on ARM’s breadth of membership, it can rely on molders, suppliers, and other experts to offer their insights regarding how the industry stacks up against other plastics processors and the general manufacturing industry.

If you have not seen it yet, here is the SWOT survey.  I encourage you to spend 5-15 minutes to participate in this effort and complete the survey.  The responses will be analyzed and shared during the 2020 Virtual Fall Meeting.

Our lives are all being impacted by the events happening around us.  If you would have told me that Tiger King would be the most normal phenomenon of 2020, I would have laughed at you.  Now, I’d rather marry Carole Baskin than jump on an airplane.  There will be a time that we can meet face to face and get back to normal.  Until then, take care of yourself.

Leave a Reply

%d bloggers like this: