Publications: ARPM Benchmarking Reports

Great business leaders always stay in-tune with the state of their industry. ARPM's State of the Rubber Industry report was designed to help rubber executives better understand current industry conditions, plan for the future, and validate the status of their own operations. With input from rubber companies across the country, this annual report analyzes historic and current trends to give rubber executives a closer look at industry momentum moving into 2023 and how processors forecast performance over the next 12 months.

This report evaluates the past, current, and anticipated future performance of plastics companies across the United States. 

The data from this survey gives executives detailed insights into how the industry is performing, allowing them to benchmark their organizations against the rest of the plastics industry.

This report provides insight into:

• The current state of the rubber products manufacturing industry
• Sales and financial performance metrics
• Key performance indicators in production and operations
• Current human resource management trends (such as salary and staffing levels)
• The six-month perception of future business performance and the state of the industry

The purpose of the Health and Benefits Report is to capture and provide insight into the health and benefits strategies of manufacturers across the United States to help businesses make better, more informed decisions. The statistics in this report represent 273 unique manufacturers in the mold building, rubber products manufacturing, and plastics processing industries across 37 states. The report content includes health insurance options used, contribution levels, eligibility for health benefits, medical expenditure, cost containment strategies, prescription drug coverage, Rx cost containment strategies, ancillary benefits offered, annual benefit renewal process, and retirement programs offered. The report also features an appendix that segments the data by processors excluding mold builders.

ARPM’s Wage and Salary report has become one of the most widely recognized industry benchmarks on compensation in the United States Rubber Industry. The 2022 final report provides information on over 60 different job titles in the rubber industry and includes benchmarks on starting and average wages, wage ranges for each job category, average tenure, salary trends, and statistical analysis of specific job titles.

The first Quarterly Pulse Report for 2022 is now available!

This report evaluates the past, current, and anticipated future performance of rubber products manufacturers across the United States. 

The data from this survey gives executives detailed insights into how the industry is performing, allowing them to benchmark their organizations against the rest of the rubber products manufacturing industry.

This report provides insight into:

• The current state of the rubber products manufacturing industry
• Sales and financial performance metrics
• Key performance indicators in production and operations
• Current human resource management trends (such as salary and staffing levels)
• The six-month perception of future business performance and the state of the rubber products industry

The purpose of this benchmarking report is to provide insights that allow the reader to compare their production and quality performance to that of manufacturers in the plastics and rubber industries. A committee of industry leaders with decades of experience and a wealth of manufacturing knowledge oversaw the creation of this report.

This report primarily represents the performance of members within the Association for Rubber Products Manufacturers (ARPM) and the Manufacturers Association for Plastics Processors (MAPP). While most of the participants are association members, the sample population extends beyond ARPM and MAPP member companies to provide an accurate outlook on manufacturing production and quality performance in 2021. The performance metrics highlighted in this report can be applied to a wide range of manufacturing industries and help clarify performance standards for the reader.

The 2021 State of the Rubber Industry Report includes over 30 pages dedicated to analyzing more than three dozen different economic indicators. With input from rubber companies across the country, this annual report analyzes historic and current trends to give rubber executives a closer look at industry momentum moving into 2022 and how processors forecast performance over the next 12 months.

ARPM’s Wage and Salary report has become one of the most widely recognized industry benchmarks on compensation in the United States Rubber Industry. The 2021 final report provides information on over 60 different job titles in the rubber industry and includes benchmarks on starting and average wages, wage ranges for each job category, average tenure, salary trends, and statistical analysis of specific job titles.

ARPM is benchmarking the use of CRM systems across three manufacturing sectors - mold manufacturing, plastics processing, and rubber products manufacturing. The final report will provide executives and sales and marketing professionals with evaluations of CRM system features and overall use in these industries. CRM use will be evaluated on features offered in the following areas:

• Prospecting and lead generation
• Customer relationship management and database use
• Analytics and automation
• Investment and ease of implementation

This year, this annual report benchmarked current benefits offered by manufacturers in three areas - mold manufacturing, plastics processing and rubber products manufacturing.

Benefits reviewed include health, vision, dental and life insurance and retirement programs. The final report includes aggregate data for all surveyed manufacturers, as well as an appendix with data specific to each industry.

To better understand the current and future state of the rubber products manufacturing industry, ARPM is conducting a quarterly Rubber Industry Pulse Survey. This survey takes only a few minutes to complete but gives insights into how the rubber industry is faring - and what executives anticipate for the future. Throughout the rest of this analysis, this report will use the 2021 State of the Rubber Industry as a baseline of comparison, as well as previous ARPM Pulse Surveys from last year where applicable.

To download the report for free, use the promo code ARPMPULSE

The 2021 State of the Rubber Industry Report includes over 30 pages dedicated to analyzing more than three dozen different economic indicators. With input from rubber companies across the country, this annual report analyzes historic and current trends to give rubber executives a closer look at how the industry will perform over the next 12 months. This report includes metrics such as:

• Quoting
• Backlog
• Shipments
• Resin pricing
• Sales
• Offshoring
• Profits

2021 industry forecasts, such as:

• Sales
• Profits
• Capital Expenditures
• Executive Challenges
• Market Optimism

• Sales forecast
• Market outlook
• Challenges and trends
• Customer demands
• Off-shoring 
• Raw material trends
• Quoting activity
• Capital expenditures
• Overall profitability

*Please note, non-members wanting the webinar recording will receive a link after purchase.

If you are an ARPM member, please log in to your account and view the archived webinars page to view the recording for free.

ARPM’s Wage and Salary report has become one of the most widely recognized industry benchmarks on compensation in the United States Rubber Industry. The 2020 final report provides information on over 60 different job titles in the rubber industry and includes benchmarks on starting and average wages, wage ranges for each job category, average tenure, salary trends, and statistical analysis of specific job titles.

The 2020 State of the Rubber Industry Report includes nearly 40 pages dedicated to analyzing more than three dozen different economic indicators. With input from rubber companies across the country, this annual report analyzes historic and current trends to give rubber executives a closer look at how the industry will perform over the next 12 months. This report includes metrics such as:

• quoting
• backlog
• shipments
• resin pricing
• sales
• offshoring
• profits

2020 industry forecasts, such as:

• sales
• profits
• capital expenditures
• executive challenges and trends

ARPM’s Wage and Salary report has become one of the most widely recognized industry benchmarks on compensation in the United States Rubber Industry. The 2019 final report provides information on over 60 different job titles in the rubber industry and includes benchmarks on starting and average wages, wage ranges for each job category, average tenure, salary trends, and statistical analysis of specific job titles.

ARPM collected over 40 sample vacation policies from manufacturers. This 137-page document includes data in regards to policies and procedures from manufacturers, as well as all samples provided by member companies. Companies looking to update or benchmark their vacation policies are able to review trends and common practices across the industry, as well as review actual policies from other organizations.

This report includes input from 192 plastics and rubber processing companies across the United States and covers trends in health insurance, vision, dental and life insurance; as well as retirement and other benefits currently being offered by manufacturers.

Good business leaders always stay in-tune with the state of their industry. By understanding current conditions, executives can make better tactical decisions and validate the status of their own operations. 

ARPM's State of the Industry survey was created by industry business leaders who understand the importance of staying up-to-date on the changing conditions of the marketplace and is the only survey of its kind in the United States rubber industry.