Adam Grubb:
The world of paint is about to have a very different view for you. With over 200 years in the coatings business with the first beer can to skyscrapers around the world, Valspar has remained a constant presence in the coatings business. Today we take a look at color, confidence and collaboration as we go inside Valspar.
GFX: Inside Valspar Color
Adam:
The production and process of coatings is as you expect-very precise. What you might not know is that everyday customization can and does happen. But before any production can begin, a unique color matching process is first. Here's Technical Manager Channing Beaudry.
Channing:
You look inside of our warehouse and in our factory in general, and a lot of people just think if you go to a local hardware store and you put a little paint on there you mix a little color and it's done. It's a much more complicated process.
Adam:
And overseeing that process is plant manager Todd Meunier.
Todd:
In this area of the plant we call dispersion, we're combining resins and solvents and pigments together to create intermediates that are going to use later in the process for finished goods products.
Channing:
When we design a new product it can really come from two different places. One could be a customer coming to us with a new, fun, exciting idea and asking us to develop product that will meet the requirements or it can be us coming up with a new product and then going to the customer and saying, hey, would you be interested? Is this something that you think your end users would like.
Adam:
And that process falls on technical lead, Michelle Brownlee in the color lab.
Michelle:
There is a lot of things going on this lab today.
We have color matching going on. We're doing analytical work. We also have a site support and customer base group that works out of this lab. So basically were developing the newest, hottest, trends and also the new technologies for our industry.
Adam:
With a focus on efficiency and customer satisfaction, they revel in the color match process.
Michelle:
We will bring in new and exotic pigments and put them into our coatings to show our customers the latest and greatest exotic colors, specialty effect pigments, basically the stuff that we think is new and exciting.
Channing:
At the other side would be a customer comes up and says we've got a concept, we've got a new idea that we think end users, the consumers, would really like. Can you make it happen?
Michelle:
A lot of times we use display boards as a starting point. We'll offer it and say hey this is what we can do and they'll say I like that but we'd like it a little bit warmer or we'd like a little bit cooler, we'd like it a little bit sparklier.
Adam:
So when your customers say more sparklier, do you know what that means?
Michelle:
It's sometimes a guessing game and a learning curve to figure out what their design teams mean by warmer or sparklier. But yeah, once we've been working with them for a while we kind of get to know their lingo and understand what they're looking for.
Channing:
I mean, color is something that drives the Coil division. Everybody looks at the products that are coated and they want to see that nice bright color. They want to see it last. So it's not just about matching initial color. One of the things our customers really are focused on is will it look the same way five years, 10 years, 30 years down the road.
Adam:
The changing needs and vision of any customer can create a demanding environment here inside the Valspar Color Lab.
As we've shown you today, these people care about color. Next, we're going to show you the collaboration necessary to create flawless products in the marketplace. This is Inside Valspar.
GFX: Inside Valspar
