By Jeff White
In the industrial painting industry, I’ve heard people say that “more than 80% of failures are because of poor surface preparation.” It’s also been said that surface preparation is the most important part of a coating system.
You can think of surface preparation as being like the foundation of a building. Continue reading Prep Your Surface, and Prep it Well
By Jeff White, Induron Sales Manager
Earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis. Unfortunately, in the past few years it hasn’t been unusual to hear about these natural disasters occurring all over the world. How to deal with relief efforts and keep people safe in the aftermath is always a challenge, and I think this new technology could be an interesting solution. Continue reading Fighting Disasters with Inflatable Concrete
By Brian Wolfe, Induron Sales Rep
We’ve talked before about the meaning of value and what that looks like to us at Induron. But I really think it’s a topic worth revisiting, especially since we want to be the best value provider for coatings in our market.
Today, everybody seems to want to do more with less. We have the ability to communicate almost instantaneously. So is it realistic for us to call on design professionals we want to work with and provide each one with valuable information? Continue reading Be a Resource, not a Peddler to Add Value
By Kendall Smith, Induron Sales Rep
Did you ever notice that when the future is portrayed in movies (especially in dystopian sci-fi movies), nothing gets properly maintained? There are no corrosion consultants specifying abrasive blasting, containments, chloride removal, 3-coat coating systems, spray application, etc?
Perhaps in the future there will be limited budgets for all the elements of a successful coatings job that people have come to believe are necessary. However, those elements are not always needed for a great coatings project.
So what would I recommend to a post-Armageddon society to keep rust at bay while keeping inter-galactic costs low? Induron’s Induraguard 9200 and E-Bond! Continue reading Take me to your Leader (in corrosion control)
I’ve always enjoyed the challenge of selling and feel that every job has some sales aspect – even if it’s just selling yourself to your boss. A teacher is selling education, a minister is selling religion, a politician is selling… well, you get my point.
I started out my sales career thinking all it took to be a good salesman was to treat your customer like you would like to be treated – the “Golden Rule” of sales. Then one day, it dawned on me that Customer Service was a big part of selling. So I started putting more emphasis on Customer Service.
Recently, I talked to a potential new customer about how great Induron’s customer service was. I felt I had made a strong presentation, but it didn’t convince the customer to switch.
Shortly after that I read an article from Alister & Paine entitled, “Do You Need a Customer Service “Spring Cleaning?” It came as a big surprise when I realized that I had at least three of the five bad customer service habits described in the article. It was a good reminder that even people who have been in this business a long time can always make improvements.
For example, probably my greatest fault during my years in sales has been that I worry too much. I worry about not getting orders shipped on time or my customer blaming our products for a failure that wasn’t our fault. This article made me realize that spending more time solving a customer’s problems – rather than worrying about things I can’t control – will make me more productive.
And that, of course, makes for happier customers.
By Davies Hood, Induron President
As a general rule, I’m opposed to PACs (Political Action Committees) because of the “secrecy” of their membership and undue influence in our nation’s political process.
However, I am also opposed to a lot of the everyday activities that I regularly participate in. What do I mean? I’m opposed to paying unfair sales taxes on groceries and medicine. I’m opposed to participating in the “free-rider” aspect of volunteer organizations. And I’m very much opposed to the game I grew up playing – football – being deteriorated by the NFL on a year-by-year or even week-by-week basis. But I digress.
But a recent article from PaintSquare has me cheering for (or at least, considering cheering for) the success of the new NACE PAC in Washington.
Look at the numbers: 3.1 percent of our nation’s GDP is spent on corrosion repair and prevention. And it is estimated that up to 30 percent of that cost could be eliminated with proper design and maintenance.
That’s about 1 percent of our GDP, or, in layman’s terms, $120 billion.
You read that right – $120,000,000,000. Continue reading Conflicted.
By John Anspach, Induron VP of Operations
With the recent uptick in fuel prices, it wouldn’t appear to be the case. However, a recent article in Chemical Processing indicates that significant strides are being made to really get there.
The likely biggest domestic energy development toward that end is the availability of gas from shale oil. New technology is allowing easier access to this enormous untapped energy resource. Michael Cowen of the International Energy Agency (EIA) states that, “within five years, the U.S. is likely to break the record output high reached more than two decades ago, to flirt with the position of top world producer.” Imagine that… having greater output than the Saudis! This can be possible with efficient shale oil conversion, combined with investments in new pipelines. If both methods are employed, it would significantly lower U.S. demand from oil imports, and move us closer to energy independence. Continue reading Is the U.S. Really Heading Toward Energy Independence?
By Davies Hood, Induron President
Our Core Values here at Induron are Integrity, Respect, RELIABILTY and Innovation. I was reminded of the least referenced one of these while reading this article in “Chemical Processing.”
As industrial paint manufacturers, we are considered part of the chemical industry, not only by ourselves, but also by the U.S. government. This article begins with the statement, “Reliability improvement remains imperative for chemical makers,” and mentions two of our biggest suppliers – Air Products and Chemicals and Dow Chemicals.
At Induron, we regularly report our Cycle Count (read more about Cycle Count here), which is an internal measure of doing things correctly time after time. More accurately put, it’s a measure of reliability. We consistently score in the 0.15 – 0.25 range (the lower the better), which by all accounts is an industry outlier.
This article talks about how Air Products and Dow have both taken an inward-looking metric and turned it inside out. This places their focus more on their customers than just their internal processes, and puts reliability at the forefront.
Two comments by Wilbur Mok, Air Products vice president of North American tonnage gases, that I particularly appreciated are, “We took the best operating practices and shared them globally. So now we operate each plant the same way.” This led to Air Products “freeing up site teams to spend more time on higher value tasks, such as preventative maintenance, improvement projects and troubleshooting.” Continue reading Impacting Reliability
By Hayne Crum, Induron Chemist
I recently read an article about the paint Pablo Picasso used in his paintings. While you might think that a master like Picasso would use the finest paint available for canvas, that is not the case. Apparently, he used house paint. That’s right – the same paint that covered the exterior walls of homes was used on his masterpiece, “Red Armchair” and more.
Art historians speculate that Picasso is the first of the “masters” of the art world to have used this type of paint.
For centuries, artists mixed their own paint from fine oils and pigments. The paint that was made for commercial use (to decorate and protect houses and metals) simply was not good enough for fine artists’ portraits and paintings.
It was not until the beginning of the last century that commercial paint was processed well enough to produce a product that could live up to the high standards of an artist. However, that paint still used natural oils and ground pigments, and still had the problems that paint had for most of history – it cracked, faded and yellowed when exposed to air and natural light. These chemical processes were unavoidable with natural products.
However, over the years, technology has redefined how paints are produced. While some paints are still made the “old fashioned” way, newer paints are now much more durable and come in a huge array of pigments – paint colors that simply didn’t exist during Picasso’s lifetime. Continue reading Picasso’s Paint
Don’t we all want to get the best value for anything we purchase? Whether it’s a big expense like a new vehicle, or something as small as a haircut to make us look our best (I unfortunately don’t have much use for that service), we all want to get value in everything we buy.
So what determines the “best value” for a coatings project? At Induron, our mission statement is “Reliable Protection Through Innovative Coatings.” We believe we are the best value provider for coatings in our markets.
Why?
I think it goes without saying – in our focus markets, we wouldn’t even be in the game if we didn’t provide the highest quality products at competitive prices.
So how do we differentiate ourselves? With the experience and knowledge of our people.
More than 70 percent of our sales force has invested in obtaining a NACE Coatings Inspector Certification. Add to that the fact that our sales team has an average of 20+ years in the coatings industry, and you realize that they are a great resource for engineers and owners trying to protect their assets from corrosion. Continue reading What does “value” mean to you?
