GFX: Inside Valspar Collaboration
Adam Grubb:
We're inside Valspar for a unique look at the coatings business and a company that prides itself on teamwork and collaboration, not just inside these walls, but globally. So internally then there's a lot different visions for different jobs that everybody collaborates really well and works together very well and knows the other's responsibility. Is that by design?
GFX: Channing Beaudry Technical Manager
Channing:
Absolutely. We have to work closely with our customers that if we're not working well together that just won't happen. So, that's really one of the focal points we have as all of our different groups communicate very well. So whether we're working on building products or appliance, they're communicating back and forth because there's a lot of transfer of technology between those two groups.
It's really about developing products from the ground up. And when I say that it's interacting directly with our customers collaborating with them. And then, taking that all the way through our production process. So when we design a product, it's not only something that the customer wants, it's something that we know we can consistently make and give good quality. So we even keep in mind how we're going to match colors in order for quick turnaround time as we're developing a new technology.
Adam:
A big reason for the quick turnaround for Valspar Coil and Extrusions is the color science lab and the communication that they have with their end user.
Technical Lead, Michelle Brownlee.
Michelle:
We involve our chemists at the ground level with the customer. Our chemists visit the coil coating facilities, our chemists visit the end users and work directly with their designers. We've also had our customers come down here to our facility and work directly with our chemists on the bench. We actually let them make the paint, adjust the paint and see and feel and touch what we do here.
Channing:
And part of the collaboration we see with the laboratory that gets to be very interesting, would be if we create something for one marketplace that's interesting and fun for us, we will take it to our customers and say, in a different market, and say hey, will this look good on a building? You know, we put it on a dishwasher. We put on a refrigerator. How would it work on the side of a building? And also seeing the trends globally. So whether it's in Europe, Asia, North America or South America, we can take the different regions and say, Are you interested in this technology?
Adam:
A big reason for the focus on collaboration with the end user is the trust that brings.
Channing:
And our customers realize that if they use Valspar coating it's going to last, it's going to perform like they want. The other thing when we look at designing a new product, one of the things we'd look at is what the end use is going to be and what customers really want. So when we have successful development projects it happens because we go to customers or they come to us and say what the end use needs to be. And what I mean by that is if we know what the ultimate goal is we can design a product to meet that. And that way the customer gets what they really need, not just what they're asking for.
Adam:
Communication is key in any company. But for a multimillion dollar organization like Valspar Coil and Extrusions, it's imperative. Next, we showcase the manufacturing process to the culmination of this and we ship the paint out the door.
GFX: Inside Valspar
