AkzoNobel (Amsterdam, Netherlands) announced the opening of a new, best-in-class research and development (R&D) center in High Point, North Carolina. The new center functions as a product development facility and customer support center for AkzoNobel’s Wood Coatings business.
The company’s community of North America R&D centers supporting the Performance Coatings businesses include laboratories in the following locations: Troy, Michigan; Strongsville, Ohio; Houston, Texas; Flying Hills, Pennsylvania; and Lancaster, South Carolina.
AkzoNobel hosted a grand opening ceremony that was attended by customers, suppliers, employees, and community leaders. The R&D centers have advanced equipment that allows the company to reproduce the application environment and methods for customers, as well as ensures that products provide the intended performance once commercialized.
The new manufacturing footprint in High Point provides AkzoNobel with the ability to produce the latest technologies without interruption. The company will leverage the new R&D center’s capabilities to consolidate solvent-based and water-based product research to drive leading innovations for the wood coatings industry.
“We will use the new laboratory to leverage the latest best practices,” says Jim Kavanaugh, managing director of industrial coatings for AkzoNobel. “The application center will contain the latest application and testing equipment that will allow us to mimic our customer’s lines and environments. We will be able to accelerate the time it takes to scale up products for launches without wasting our customer’s valuable line time as we can efficiently and predictably develop, test, and industrialize our technologies to meet customer requirements.”
According to company officials, AkzoNobel is providing high quality products with the agility to adjust specifications to meet market demands.
“This investment significantly increases AkzoNobel’s comprehensive North America supply capability for the Wood Coatings market and makes it possible to react much faster to trends,” says Ted Rhee, AkzoNobel’s regional commercial director of wood finishes and adhesives. “It will also enable us to serve our direct OEM customers and our distribution partners better who are currently being served from our High Point factory.”
Source: AkzoNobel, www.akzonobel.com.